they who found my wallet

 

I hope they go fishing

some time in the next 4 months

I hope they buy waterproof shoes

for gliding over slick stones

in their travels upstream

I hope they have good knees

ornate flies

stillness 

guile

and sure wrists

I hope they pack a nice lunch

and a few tangerines

I hope they fumble around 

a canopy of oak

and find beneath the leafy crackle

a school of golden mushrooms

I hope they attend

the fortune of forked ridges

part way down the stem

I hope they have a friend

who knows what they’re doing

when to cast

when to drift

when a pool is still and will be

I hope it’s enough

lying on a boulder

in the heat of winter

with a foraged license

pictures of a staggering baby

a few dollars more

protest

 

once you find the agency

to be naked 

on a bed of wood chips

spray yourself with a hose

of winter water

to stand in a rusted basin

in a muddy puddle

of marigold leaves

and the backwash of buttery moths

as the wind carries jasmine

and lemon blossoms

like innocent victims

it’s hard to step away

put your clothes back on

affirmations

 

I don’t need to forgive my brother

I don’t need to get married

I don’t need to mediate

I don’t need your AI art

I don’t need to be addicted

to things I don’t need

I don’t need constant affirmation

I don’t need isolation

I don’t need friends that don’t play

I don’t need shampoo most days

I don’t need more dishes

or fridge items you forgot to eat

I don’t need the blinds closed

I don’t need to sing quieter

I don’t need shorter finger nails

or a back to scratch

I don’t need to practice languages

though I do

as I walk alone

in the daytime

in the evening 

I don’t need to be fluent

to ask for the love I deserve

I don’t need persimmons

bed time

 

at the risk of pajamas

i let the mice have their dinner

no sweeping

let there be baby dolls

of many shapes and colors

in hazardous locations

underfoot

some with eyelashes

some with eyes that roll back in their heads

in the gap between the fridge door and the floor

beside the toilet

they disappear in patterned rugs

with their polychrome charm

becoming more butterflies

becoming more vowels in camouflage

if they had teeth

they wouldn’t brush them

if they had chocolate

they would eat it late at night

the risk is great

that they are playing party games

at the expense

of freshly laundered napkins

that they smoke our japanese incense

and laugh at our pictures

after the first aneurysm

 

I thought terry’s chocolate orange was a bespoke confection?

for my mother?

that gilded fruit-shaped things were significant?

the hollow interiors home to fortunes?

figurines?

liquids?

I admired it like a faberge!

on the breakfast bar!

amidst the chopsticks and kleenex boxes!

chinese takeout containers with metal arms!

don’t microwave!

expensive watches!

there was nothing but orange juice in the fridge.

and off smells.

more bamboo in his house than mine.

tv dinner tables.

practice swords.

cutting boards.

my mother would love a chocolate orange:

even if her name was pam:

but the orange was his:

a house knows when it’s empty:

by the dust and tempered light:

dry leaves in the bottom of a mug:

full time work

 

what's it called when you see the glint of your own cavities on the snow flecks of yellowing 

peaks / when the camphor leaves grow back / when limes rest on a bush for the taking / what is a 

neighbor if they stare into your dining room window without smiling / a box of sunflowers / and 

if it takes so long for the dog to pee on this patch of grass / why not peel back the plastic shell 

and smash your phone / put out a line of cones and dance like an orange / fix the electricity / 

what’s the highest you’ve been on the neck of a crane / do you install a balcony on the monstrous 

condo / or do you feather down on the backs of water buffalo / how much do you have to day 

dream for the benefits to kick in / do you know a good dentist

tears for fears

 

it's a seance

for donnie darko

nightmares of incipient puberty

can’t resolve in just 2 hours

even if the bunny costume

fits perfectly

or the soundtrack

induces the year of my birth

 

limits of mumblecore

at its messianic fringe

deliver me a schizophrenic aunt

and a suicidal sibling

stripped of their washed denim

gift wrapping

a refillable bucket

of buttered popcorn

i divine my own subtitles

like frank is hot, it’s ok

or this will haunt you in college

and nobody cares

or one halloween night when you’re 30

you’ll find a buffet at the self-actualization center

at the mouth of the russian river

the other guests will leave you like ghosts

alone in the rotunda

of glass, birch and scattered brain games

you’ll find a piano mostly tuned

and play the only song

you know

the score is 2:2 but the body doesn't care

then there’s olive oil

in the black curls

not enough to yoke a brillowy cowlick

tongue to the back of the head feeling

if thats what my heart needs

i don’t mind frizz

there’s a dead uncle in the back of my throat 

called uvula 

a swallow is a bird more or less

when cancer is the sign

the long neck between myself

and the mothering plate

of my chest 

where the nest of little injuries

radiates warmth

i guess birth is a fractured shell

a soft pale stomach

psoas to lie discretely between a spine

and everything tender

the tip of a drill cranked through my hip

left its petroglyphs

in the place where blood seeps up 

i’m a dancer there

i wear cotton pants there

i believe in the written record

but soft spoken

mouth moths convey 

condolences from the alcoholics

who grew my knee hair

may they rest peacefully

beneath my ample arches

 

love letter

 

with the intention of foolish love

reckless fawning

with the intention of splashed bathwater

to measure the breadth of anvils

derivative as words

and gifts for a gold-bound buddha

 

who soiled a houseplant

trying to find the germ that whispers

an intention of humility

where affection splits a piñata of pearls

the unattended swine

chases its quilly fur for want of more mud

with exoteric intentions

the erotic exits empty headed

the crystal tingle of a body

emergent as a chrysalis

with the intention of ivy

crawling all over the blunt statues

where knock kneed pigeons

intend their bread crumbs

and love writes itself

the only way it knows how

dave calls me now and then

 

for a house without a smoke detector

i got so high

on the top bunk

i knocked over the fishing rods

as I writhed to not dark yet

i fell into my body

for the first time

i needed help

as I sucked the smoke out of your lips

my technique so poor

i felt the room cough

the floors buckled

splintered

pretended to read james joyce

and when it was safe

i went public with french fries

i emerged like a nightshade

in union square

i used to be poisonous 

my heart used to beat in my throat

we used to drink bailey’s irish cream

and grow mold

under your parents bed

i hated that you called them chip and laurie

it made me the child

but i knew where the fire escape was

because chip had thrown a violent cat

to its death

his severed nose in its mouth

the story goes

i hope you became a marine biologist

that you still take the train from sheepshead bay

at 4 in the morning

with dancers and fishermen

who humor your maturity