Unlearn lesson. 
Unload snake bullets. 
Unclimb Tree of Death and Life. 
Unfall into temptation. 

Her heart is a steering wheel  
       with no grip.     Look at the seams 
between the valves –  

almost invisible.  

Raspberries lose their gumption in late July.
They placate themselves, accept
becoming bird feed to disperse

among conifers, to flow wordlessly
into the quagmire and wait for the snout
of next year.

i can tell he is still jealous of you 
but we can’t move our eyes from the wood paneled floors. 
the place was heavily decorated 
pink tulle hanging from the ceiling 
like shrouds. 

It was a weekday, a weekday that saw most grownups of the world working, earning, rearing children, driving cars and carpools, paying bills, mortgages, taxes, a weekday when husbands I knew trusted their wives and those wives trusted their husbands with their infants and toddlers, with mealtime, with bath time, on the changing table, with putting the baby to sleep, a weekday when I was one of those wives

Look, I've known warmth
That means so
Much more than
Heat. I've kissed someone
I thought might die
That day.

she points to the  
spots on her thighs  

sneak to the bathroom 
use up her foundation  

pound my pores  
into submission 

I’ve suffered a few whacks. The doctors call them strokes. But I remain committed to my lifelong poem and celebrate the final edition that supersedes all. Truth be, I’d much rather have a mud bath followed by an immersion in a cold spring. That is my ease.

When you hear her alarm go off, run to get the dog and whisper ‘We have to get the hell outta here!’ Dash to the car and sit still together while the engine warms. If you hear a whippoorwill, and feel the pink streaked sky cloud your mind, and the overhead light melts and drips into your coffee mug, then you are ready to be dragged through the woods by a fifteen-pound terrier who refuses to learn to fly

I hold a dead wasp by its left wing 
and place it in the trash, its gentle  
ruin the middle of a pile of  

kleenex.

No one to converse with either, 
So I chat with myself, contrive tales 
Of all the extraordinary things I’ll do…  

One day.   

Here under this dresser huddled against the baseboards we will find a calm existing both private and exposed.

a moon (not landing)—a space race               it’s a

crypto-hyperloop underground place              it’s A.D. hyperactivity

disorder           N.F.T.’s  New Order  

just to start again
with the cup I hold
a symbol
more impressive and eternal
than my ever more
malnourished
pedestal of a body

the crown, cartoon gold, came unclasped, crooked & sweat-wrinkled. when we polished off the bottle of stolen champagne, bubbles frothed our grease-gilded lips. this is how you left me, royal with delirium, the crown discarded under a pile of damp laundry.

Dissolved endeavors, 

corroding thus resurgence,  

tremble and embark.  

Electrocution  
isn’t never a laughing matter,  
especially for distant writers.  
When are you going to  
shift from survival mode 
to living mode?

the bartender is wearing one of those high school  
graduating class hoodies, the year 2018 & the name 
of every student, they seem overwhelmed & when we ask  
about appetizers, they snap, “No more ordering food, I’m done!” 
looks like we’re getting overpriced arena chicken fingers then 

Do you hear how loudly the hooves of the beasts’ rumble, daddy,  
Your walls are too thin, you’re already breathing so heavily –  
my bone of time is still open, my nerve of fear is still alive.