Miseria-Cantare

Appreciate what you can. That man drinking the blonde ale— I appreciate the vernacular of his mohawk. The diner will turn into a wild boar tearing into tougher hide, ignorant of the true size of his stomach. Is it the size of a tack or the size of a grenade or the size of a cannon? Separate, or his spoiled tusks will find you. And only spit in most food. Balance is key. Whenever possible, jettison past the heat-stroke into the walk-in cooler and put a palm to your ice-chest to ensure your heart still beats.                My brother went to culin

The shapeshifter of my love-mind surrenders to contrition, white noise frequency of baby making echoes potential not pursued as I search for a path through which my faith can goad permission. The marriage contract will hiss and trickle through the judge's inquisition, as he strokes his whiskered face and waits to conclude if my love-mind will shapeshift back into contrition. So I'm supposed to scream "Let me people go!" with the new New York mission? My noxious vanity and homo piety pleasure themselves then feud as I search for a path through which my faith can goad permission. And as I straddle the crevasse of rampant indecision th

Under sugar waves, resisting jeers and off-putting stares from men in corners, I hid under simple syrup and cannot recall now each drink. This morning I wrestle the reins of greater pain than nausea pangs, resurrecting my bile and my love. You still look like you're sweet. You still look like you smell sweet, maraschino cherry juice— jellied, candied. And I am dark fruit, dark fruit like the archaic building block of sinister persuasion. Last night over the loud bass, I confessed: I want to listen to only piano songs, solely sorrowful sonatas that breathe air onto pain. I want to live in a house made mostly of glass,

The papyrus sheets on the army cot, moving under the armless man I once called home, sand away my sophistries (platitudes) delivered about rebirth and the films I watched while you were away, frolicking through fields blossomed of viscera and entrails. I called them dandelions. You called them weeds and blew at them with the artillery of your tongue until they were in pieces. I know some must stay in you, caught in your throat when you cry. Ask me what I know about the war. I know their faces were like the china dolls in the window across the way from our apartment, pink lips painted on porcelain skin that stand out to you every day

1. My Lady-Parts Deliver me to space. In the black hole confines I will compress you to nothing and swallow what air is not there and crave dissipation as if it were a human right, to explode into something so infinitesimal it is almost nothingness infinite. Between my legs is a finite being. Some famous artists have portrayed it as an erotic flower. I walk past the counter of deli meat and debate this. It sits there between my legs with the little nub of an eye, Cyclops sex staring at me, daring me to look away, as I lay naked, curled in a ball. It will not blink or wink, it is paralyzed, the one eye. "What?" I finally ask.

Bound and flattened to the precipice, I walk her peak like a grifter without partner; or a troubadour. All that awaits me below is death. This is the top of things, and this, the gripping of my heel, and then the splay of my five toes, two feet, is my utmost for her highest. I stay planted. Gloriously. There may be an ocean below, or volcanic ash, or the blanch of Midwestern flatness, flatlands— but I don't look. I have no reason to look. If I lay close enough, the biting cold of the wind never reaches my ribs.

No knowledge of tying a necktie. guess I'm a girl again tonight half moon, your new septum ring a doll-face massacre hey, that looks good on you… come in nothing; undress from nothing when you leave make me somehow more naked by knowing you know nothing else. - - I found you not uglier than me at all that's when I knew like knows like, liking pretty girls like before you, this night was hostageless I unclothe the room from summer try to find some sharpness like autumn-colored legs tied around the neck like a necktie less of a girl again tonight. - - Your bony knees something subtle, the graze of a single h

The dream-catchers are handmade but each bear the same mark of boredom. On the reservation, the dirt is red and separated from the turquoise on sale. The tops of the mountains have been scraped off like whipped cream from pudding cups of beautiful alien rock. "Plateau," my mother says. I am not sure if it is a name or a command. The lightning storms are brighter in the desert. I sit perched on the horizon, the edge of one loss to another— given up my love, all my bottled water. The mountains carry their own babies in the muddy puddles, against the wind they huddle, but their semi-circle somehow is just one great smile.

Segregated was the silent heart, separated into two parts, timid and yearning, back in February, like I sanctioned others' bodies for baby making. Yet birthed in your smile firmly set in the lines of your lips, the birthing hips of challenge and harmony blended into existence, the way your face swam into view at the bar. Smile liquid and ever-changing behind the warped glass of the beer glass, your beauty beat against me like waves of Maker's Mark and I drank around you. But felt safe. I would begin to learn that your taste was sharp. But you and I, we like adventure in our mouths. Your taste was a bang big enough for me to