The business man will sign his name
a certain number of times in his long,
dry-cleaned life. $500 pens in his breast
pocket. How many signatures?
Others take his measure. 

Not even a Cyclops can stop him from shoving
folks out of his way, cutting to the front of the line. 
A master of the proxy fight and poison pill,
his greenmail raids are sure to kill or leave enemies
quaking, immured in handcuffs of tarnished gold.

I emerge from ashes like beast
because it’s September something
& I haven’t smiled since January
since backstabbing amigas tried
to take me down since Notre Dame

we are
star-spangled

& we are
earning our stripes

When a group of young men
surround you outside of the bar
and it's late and you're alone
don't react when they call you
a faggot

My mirror could have lied
but it chose not to.
I asked it sweetly, slowly
to change for me
to change me
into something free and vital,
pale and careless, 
white as snow and unburdened song.

To take a knee through history
takes bravery.
To stay down
when they came with the whips.

He was getting one fuck of a headache.
 
For a moment he thought she was going to say no more;
even allowed himself to hope this was so.

I love three people who voted for hate
there's no way to reconcile this ache
I have walked away from others, but
there are three people I love
who voted for hate

What was the first lie?
Do you remember?
Being told your neighbors
were bad?
your government bloated?
That your hair or your teeth
or your face was wrong?

Oracular    the filtered light of oak
through her peignoir     She comes to me as though
her spell was never broken     I’m still twenty
I can smell     those pungent oranges in the sun

I narrate to him that last night both partners
thought they’d given everything up for the other.
It was ugly. They didn’t get, they wouldn’t get,
what they’d hoped for. I editorialize
that I think rage is clichéd in marriage
after a decade and a half.

There was a study done
to prove that men and women
have different brains
to prove, I suppose, that
women are from venus
and men are from mars,
that men want to fuck
and women want to marry
or some garbage like that

the drinking glass
you threw
across the room

shattered
against the wall

I had said
a wrong thing

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.