###### Where you Lost a Finger

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1 

On the phone when you were in Alaska
The seagulls came close 
To your ear 

Their tongues are black you said and long
Men were chasing the birds 
With guns 

And the birds were chasing 
You and it was the first time I heard
Seagulls 

Like that—like they were speaking directly
To me—at the post office 
Waiting to mail your letter 

An unwell woman behind me belittled
The skirt I was wearing 
After the line, I was crying 

In the parking lot 
And I was so young I did not see the romance
Of a boat carrying my letter 

To your boat 

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2 

While the sea rocked you 
I sat in front of the air conditioner 
Like a hunk of frozen meat 

I did not see the romance of making money
Thought it was foolish 
To risk your life for it 

Didn’t know then 
About life’s exigencies 
Awake asleep awake asleep 
In each other’s arms

I thought the day was a bottle of champagne 

I thought eating an Iranian sandwich 
Was a memory 

When you came back from fishing 
Your arms were muscled and brown 
A friend had chopped off my hair 

While another friend videoed it 
But even that’s not a memory 

A memory hurts 

It scuttles past as immemorial
And self sufficient
As an insect 

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3 

Some people don’t like endless night. 
But I liked Alaska.
Black trees making up a mountain.

Going up the lift 
I thought of ways to tell you
I don’t know how to ski, that I had lied about many things

More than once my moral crises have peaked 
On mountaintops— 

We drank hot chocolate 
And took the elevator down— 

But in Montenegro when I broke my foot on the mountain
In front of the Lady of Good Health 
I declined to be helicoptered down, and the men and the stretcher. 

I crawled down the mountain on my hands and knees
I tried to really listen 
To what the earth was trying to tell me

Where you Lost a Finger

###### *Blow Dry*

Watching you as you 

Kneel on the bedroom floor 

In front of the mirror and 

Blow dry your hair naked 

Is something 

I’ll definitely miss

When I’m dead

Blow Dry

###### THE LOCKET

               Leave this paradise of blond wooly
taxidermies noosed in parsley. Nod out via autopsies of tenderheartedness.

*And rapt in secret studies, unsayable.*

               “Your heaven has a fire in it,”
pencils the boy to the mushroom hunter, silverfishing hair a century long.

               O golden child, sing this back a little
peppered from the wishing well, splintering acrylics as the keeper’s cloak

               leathers the mouth of the one life
kept alive on roadkill patties, plucky quail marred by green-taloned heat.

               “I will eat your sky-blue driving gloves,” coo
taffy callboys, pyrotechnically. And you know your heart by heart by now.

*The boyhood codeine made me prolific.*

               Red clown pubics curlicue the supper stew, burbling
fork-tender glue factory roan. A life spent at one’s desk is a life spent alone.

The Locket

###### SUBMITTABLE LOGIN

Didn’t expect to see him there 
even though the crowd was so him so 
middle aged and white, 
between the balds another bald. 
His glasses blinked and saw me. 

The band had finished and in my left hand 
arrived the neck of the blue and white guitar 
special and sweaty and slipping down 

Here, I held it out, I gave it to him, it’d been 
so long since we’d talked 

Now it was sweaty in his hands. 
We talked about that and other things. 

He said the moon disc is surprised by your caprice. 

And I said but some songs get sucked back to the left margin. 

And he said yeah, tidal forces.
 

Then I said you compel my attention more than the blackbird, more than the air.

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Which prompted him to say you carry certain ideas like a canoe across your shoulders, or wait, two canoes that are perpendicular.

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And I said yeah, and where’s the lake.

&nbsp;

He said just words herded by sheep dogs who tomorrow will sleep tomorrow.

&nbsp;

And I said what I wonder about, what I really wonder about is where all those flecks of fingernail polish land, like what kind of map.

&nbsp;

He said isn't it strange the professionalization of poetry in our modern times.

&nbsp;

I said I mean the New Yorker and you’ve made it.

&nbsp;

He said zoom out just a little bit, is any of it still a poem, zoom out and how can getting a poem in the New Yorker mean anything.

&nbsp;

I said you’re making me want to send this to the New Yorker.

&nbsp;

He said I think you should. I said to, you know, just send it to the New Yorker just to have said hello to the New Yorker in a poem in just such a way.

 
And so I did. 

And then my friend and I fucked 
and he was nice afterwards full of 
compliments about my pussy and my poem 
which was a surprise because I’d taken a look 
recently and it was not what I thought since 
it had been a while and I’d never made 
a habit of it back then but now I know 
and I’m glad my friend was nice.

Submittable Login

###### Process of Love

I’m burning bridges. 

I’ve got the nuclear codes. 

I’m wearing a pink jacket. 

I think about you constantly.

Process of Love

###### Total Escapades

The moon isn’t only ice cold; the moon is also greedy.
It wants our oceans for itself, along with the birds in the sky,
happy couples on their anniversary, and high velocity jet skis.
I don’t know anything about the moon or any of the other
planets; you could say I’m a poser and you wouldn’t be wrong.
So forget what I said about the moon. Forget what I said
about the Pope: his armpits don’t really attract supermodels.
The Pope used to drive to work in a blue Toyota compact;
I know that for certain. The Pope doesn’t ice skate; he’s old
and mostly older people don’t ice skate but he does read Latin,
though that probably goes without saying. My middle school
Latin teacher was skinny and pale. He was very earnest
and he taught us the root meaning of the word *ambulance*.
I rode in an ambulance once, after being stung by a wasp.

Total Escapades

###### Married for 22 years

I was twenty five
Living in Kathmandu, getting old
And my sister called me
And said, you have to come home
I have the woman for you
So I got on my motorbike
And I drove, two days straight
Through the rain
Like a hero in an Indian movie
And I got to the village
And my sister said, she’s in there
Go to her
And I went in the room
Right away, she turned her face away
Covered it, sat facing the wall
Hours, hours
She wouldn’t turn, or speak, nothing
I tried all day
I say to my sister, she won’t look at me
My sister said, wait
Come back the next day.
I come back the next day
Same thing
Two days later
Her family finds out, they’re upset
They’re coming to get her
I take her on my motorbike
And I drive, two days straight
Far away, no one can find us
Still, she covers her face
Now I get nervous, did I make a mistake?
What if she has a boil on her face
Or something
What if she is ugly
You know
But its too late, I have already taken her
It's just the two of us
Slowly, slowly
She uncovers her face
A little bit at a time
And soon I see
She is the most beautiful woman

Married for 22 years

###### Consecration

My friends are stars to me in the burning bright
way, not the remote and distant way

My adversaries are lords. Those bitches are
feudal

Some people are serfs but are ploughing in the
fields of love, which is more honorable than
being any lord

Lover, it is your shoulders that I stand on. It is
you that tried to teach me what not-fear was

Summer is the time that glimmers and we tell
limericks in the shade

When I walk alone the beloved is grandiosity
itself

Dry your soles on the mat and come to me. It’s
dumping so hard out there

What you don’t do you will never do

I’m comforting this dying dog in my lap. The
suburbs are a place to dream

Summer is the time to play games

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02/14/2023