men in rain, thin and fine halos of hair, they walk like brown trees, so spread apart. the street looks like a big thick saxophone running by. a line of light plays out along undulating roofs, threads of rain fall

She Dog                           A ticky rain of blood from             her back fur—why did her sex confuse me?             Femme, she loved girls,                         and her mustache neutered                         her. Fur             tangled and burred,   whole plants clung

In an ancient park, isolated and icy, Two passing shapes come passing by. Their lips are slack, their eyes dead, It takes effort to make out their words. In the ancient park, isolated, icy, Two ghosts trying to call back

STEP 1: For 20 years, swallow everything. Eat until you are the heaviest pillow on the bed. Then eat three pills a day to stay alive. NO. First, watch your mother build row upon row of poppies. And though you

You fire a fiction deep into my brain By the dishwasher door gaping to accept This evening’s dirtied plates. It detonates. I am unrecognizable to myself As I am unknown to you And the shockwave from the wordblast Drives out

The brass lamp in your window, warm honey heat humming in the frozen prairie February dawn when everything’s a stone of cold, may have yoo-hooed at the hobo teetering on his tattooed lip of murder, but it didn’t open the door. It’s a

Damned if I’ll be the woman who collects mass produced throw pillows counts her county’s condoms shoots chemicals to drench the porch hornet on the way to recycle the obits hums Somalian rap—young—five minutes till the end one spring considers

Bituminous was so soft, so much like dust, you could cover a roaring fire till cold and darkness were all you had, then two even three weeks later you could poke it and the blue flames you identified with the

CONGREGATION   We are six strangers gathered on a gravel road in the heart of the valley, waiting, whispering about the flock of bald eagles roosting in a distant stand of cottonwoods. Then it begins: Hunting low over the open

The dahlias’ unopened buds poke like periscopes above their clownish mass Green-yellow-red ranks of petals peel back around the hungry centers Their bent-open invitations frame a pillow of seed The long stems are drinking straws, the leaves a simple engine

The Headless Horseman The messenger was so dead they sent him to fetch life. It was easier said than done, but an agreeable mare was duly provided to him. The great desert of non-being knows no storms. Animal magnetism destroyed

This rough hooked lump, this botched antler of a dwarf moose, this half-melted candelabrum when skinned and cut is clean and bright— sun yellow, in cross section. Wok full of broccoli, forkful of forest fire: Radicle incendiary, light me up.