Novacaine fires burn bright, engulfing parchmental flesh
Ink sucks like juvenile parasites, blackened hordes buzz
Drawing cursive blood, winding, Hermes’ snakes trapped beneath
Convulsing, tightening, knotting into infinitesimal knots
Sleeping with Bukowski (and Other Things)
Gabi opens the door and says, “come in,” and I don’t know why I’m at her house because I thought we’d stopped talking in high school but she looks the same and we walk through a home she says is her own and trees grow through the roof and the floors are stacked between ladders and bats hang from the ceilings.
“We’re going to my room,” she says, and we make the climb up a ladder to a lofted bed and our knees touch and I think, this must be real.
Three Poems
Binary Sunrise
"Why didn't you name
Me Anakin?" asked the son
Who saw the whole world
In John Williams'
Scores swell as the call of "It's
Working" began its
Emanation to
The ends of a galaxy
He'd follow it through.
It's
Been a long time now
Since I've been inside this calm
And let myself stay.
I might walk through it
A while to unnameably
Familiar spaces.
Those that would never
Seem less futile to live in
For all these moments.
You
Only keep the days
That recognize themselves as
Indefinable.