Skip to content

Everyone in my photo collection

Looks as if they’re saying

“Don’t point that thing at me”

So I screen all calls from friends

But answer when salesmen and creditors call

To indulge my many hang-ups

I write polite letters to Tommy Hilfiger

Imploring him to make more baggy pants

And lessen the competition.

Once I get gnawing, I grab armfuls of dirt

From some community garden

About to be bulldozed to make way for another condom,

Drop it in the bathtub and turn on the showerhead

To have some mud to mate with.

I plant corn on graves until Hendrix

Or at least Charlie Parker comes back to play taps

And deer hold “Take Back the Night” rallies in the suburbs.

The population bomb explodes backwards.

I remove enough fat to get my ribs back

Without Eve . . . and her promises . . .

Then I turn on the heat and kneel before the coffee girls

The better to pop the pimple you call earth

And ram a couple of bottling plants

Down the carbonated throat of the sky

Until the sun comes in, bright but cold

Like the city I’m trying to escape with paint

Or by being shipped in on hand trucks like live lobsters

No one can handle till the head chef

Rings up a striking basketball player

Who could use a little cash

(if this takes awhile, good; let them know hunger in their bibs)

Who ends up liking the job so much

It’s the end of sports as we know it.

Then Saturn shines as bright and big as the moon

And it’s not even dark enough to be warm yet.

Mostly, though, I watch dust motes, and see

I cannot be consumed unless I’m consuming.