she hits the keys
with one finger
like she’s jabbing someone
in the shoulder
or chest during
a fight because they
refuse to listen

I have never slaughtered a pig.
My hands, though slathered  with a sheen
Of melted flesh, are swiftly cleaned
With a simple paper towel. 

The cottonwood trees watch. Whisper. A
lyrical business, theirs. Bored by the Wind
River, they turn toward the termite-nibbled
motel.

The Pacific begs me to swim away, anything
to keep us from strangling each other
on the boardwalk. The Freakshow

is where our love belongs, a two-headed
oddity feasting on dust and bone

This is how pleasure goes marauding 

thinking twenty was happy    
thinking faces you won’t believe
wrapped in a smell of hand     

When she reeked of distraction, a dozen fools
set out to decant her childhood. 

You work with doll pieces and cigar
boxes. Mirrors reflect limbs
suspended on toothpicks.

It’s easy to forget how weird Elvis was, sitting in the Atlanta airport on a Sunday morning, Viva
Las Vegas on every screen, 

lined up at the bar with fellow travelers recently notified that alcohol is not for sale until 12:30 this afternoon.

Come chill with me and watch a show
Tonight, whenever, I don't know;
We'll listen to the new J. Cole,
And I will judge your nipple mole

Sodom, Sodom
look back, look back
you will be Rorschach
a print of a man

She’s not my aunt by blood,
so I’ve a chance to taste her.

I'm standing in the wind.
We had five years left to cry,
stay in, get things done.

The wordy gurdy stands
quiet in the middle of my head;
missing pieces [with just enough
shine] rubber-banded tog-

Back then, when she rose
from her beach chair, the weave imprinted itself
on the backs of her jiggly thighs.

Who would have carried it this far,
up the crest between watersheds, 
then quit before the downhill?

This was your domain.
Pocket jingling a handful of brads, flat pencil behind your ear,
you’d bore through the browsers; pay and go.

When you rose from the sea
the crown of your head
touched the clouds

A conveyor belt delivers mutton and fowl.
Hot meringues suffer and collapse
under my ruthless fork.