apr 29

In Memory of the Women of the Jefferson Street Safeway

One had pants that were barely more

than tight strings striping their flesh.

One had a twisting ponytail and a shiny nose

and legs that went on forever.

One had a smiling corgy with milky eyes.

One had an eagle tattooed across her chest,

a breast clutched in each talon.

One had an ivory spiral necklace

and rattlesnake bracelets and metal spikes 

pointing in every direction.

One had a baby. One had two babies.

One had a flip flop on one foot

and nothing on the other.

One had a t-shirt with the Morton salt girl

that said “I’m a salty bitch.”

One had a sunken face like a soft apple.

One had a thousand eyes and 

a pair of bony wings.

One had hair made of fire. 

One had hair made of the word “hair”

written over and over across her scalp.

One had a hole in her so wide

I could have stuck my hand through it

and grabbed her ass. 

One had mirrored sunglasses 

and she asked “What are you looking at?”

and I didn’t tell her 

I was looking at myself.

apr 28

 Beneficience

Elbow the passenger side window. 

Reach, grab, walk away. Don’t run.

Don’t look at your prize

until you’re a few blocks away.

Don’t think about what you left behind.

A square hole in the glass. 

A handful of crumbs glittering on the leather. 

A tiny vortex of rage

drilling into someone’s day,

hitting a vein of pure gold.

april 27

 I am crashing through layers of air

as if they were stories of a skyscraper

Wings mangled. Metal feathers 

corkscrewing down to stab the ground. 

I am gathering momentum. All my limbs 

waving, accumulating layers 

of trash and scrap and detritus

as I plummet through the ozone, 

through the canopy, through the waves

and sediment, all the way to the core

where it all burns off and I am left

a wisp of ash in the shape of a skeleton

continuing to pass through the Earth

and bursting through the ground

on the other side of the world, 

laughing

april 26

 Flirting with the Caterers

A synthesizer instead of 

a horn section

sequins instead of stars

I draped my work clothes

across the seat of the exercise bike

Hammered out the itinerary 

then accidentally erased it

Expressed my disdain

for food cars and pop-up shops

Then took it back

A ball python instead of a guinea pig

Kalamata instead of Castelvetrano

There’s a riot going on, she said,

as I carefully affixed the lime green

strip of paper around her slender wrist

and pressed the ends tight so it 

would last the evening

Though it didn’t

april 25

Childproof Locks

and so the people elected a regime of rich white-supremacist homophobic transphobic misogynists who saw this as their last shot to grab as much as they could before the people caught on to their grift and before the world ended accusation equaled confession with these assholes every word they spewed was projection they didn't just want power and money they were sadists and sociopaths and sickos the fact that their cartoonish villainy was not just tolerated or ignored but actually defended and even extolled was sickening we found it impossible to respect anyone who had ever thought that giving such dangerous buffoons the keys to the car would result in anything other than a horrible wreck those of us trapped in the back seat unable to open the doors due to the childproof locks that we were assured had been installed for our own safety felt mangled and paralyzed even before impact we saw the cliff approaching faster and faster and felt unable to stop the madmen behind the wheel who assumed that just before the vehicle flew off the edge and exploded in flames at the bottom they would be able to jump free at the last minute and that the wads of bills stuffed inside their suits would buffer them from serious injury as it had their whole lives that they would stand up and brush themselves off and walk away unscathed

and they were right

April 24

 Diaphonization

She stood behind the curtain, certain 

That we couldn’t see her, even though her shoes

Were clearly visible underneath.

Better to have your outer shell collapse than to rot from the inside.

Leached of all pigment

You fade but I can still feel your hand

your breath in my ear

A wax museum on the boardwalk, sand on my lips

All of us wax, or fat, or 

for the purest (luckiest) among us, glass

April 23

 2 poems about plants

1.

An eye plucked from its socket

And pressed into the soil

will sprout and grow into a thick, dense shrub

whose fruit will turn and watch

As you walk past.

A heart freed of its cage

will burrow deep into the dirt

and send up tendrils that will 

creep across the earth

and tangle around your feet,

scratch its name on your flesh with its thorns

A brain popped from its can

and covered in loam and nurtured

with rich, pungent fertilizer

will grow into a tree. When the wind blows 

it shall thrash its branches wildly

and cut itself to splinters

with its own sharp leaves

2.

When Spring's fingers dig into you,

do you shiver and whimper?

Do you squirm with pleasure

when the fruit trees shower you 

with their petals?

Not me. It's another miserable April

And once again I feel mocked by the blossoms

Bursting everywhere, using their colors

To try to distract me from this drab existence.

We're not even in the same kingdom,

Yet I'm being sexually molested

By these vegetal predators.

Just because they smell pleasant,

Must i spread my legs for this

non-consensual scented harassment,

this aromatic assault?
Do you think if you stuff me with pollen

I'll burst into bloom?

No. My gardens are withered, my fields are barren. 

Seeds rattle in their husks. The fruit's gone sour.

It may be Spring, but my body says it's November. 

I'm much too old to want to be fucked by a flower.