The finback had beached a long time ago— / storm-scattered ribs, / vertebra polished by sand, / knucklebones caged in black grass.

She tries for us to transfer / the gist of what remains inside the stock- / pile of parts in a basement she never enters

There’s a bird believed to suck the teats of goats at night. / Flocks alight swollen on the slash pines while we sleep. / Here, in this dark field, among what’s been cast out / from the body of …

I want to love my teeth— / their crooked city skyline / and lemon-stained swagger.

The birds sing in a major key. Our leaders are draped in paper. / Their teeth glisten carelessly. I am full of something that makes / me weightless. We all are.

Why weren’t we told the rain / would trample our darkening fields? / To the disaster, there’s only / wind to testify.

I’ve got the sky in my mouth so when I open it to speak / nothing leaks out except contrails. I order my coffee / & it comes to me in a robin’s egg blue cup with my name / scrawled on it in black …

I am yellow fingers swabbing / your face at dawn and a ghost / breath blown on your wife’s neck

All I want is something incredible & ridiculous / like dinosaur sex, / which must’ve taken no prisoners & no amount of sunset / sweet talk.

Forgive me, for I have been nurturing my well-worn / grudges against beauty. I am hoping my neighbors / will show some mercy on me for backing my car into / the garden & crushing what I will say were …

If you’re American in the living room / & European in the bathroom / what are you in the airport holding cell?

Forgive the hours you waited in paradise alone. / We always knew I was wild, wrecked / with wonder I could not bring into our house / without printing the floor with blood.

there’s a certain kind of swagger I can’t pull off in a dress. / people like to make me into a feather— / drop me off the table & I float down. I’m sick of grace. / I’d like to wear …

I want to record / the burning out / of the light bulb / that soon they won’t sell.

She drives 2 hours to visit and can’t stop yawning / while I've walked a mile in the rain’s velveteen, / my dress adherent, boots deepening their brown— / working on my portfolio for being …

He threatened to wrap me in Christmas / tinsel and send me off to Grandma.

what was it that drove the weather / underground underground? / what was the switch that flipped back / their hair to show twelve foreheads / crowned with coming bullets? . was it the times, was it …

We're not here yet, and still the key aches in the lock. I am leaving, and it's as if I was returning

Why hide? To be found. Why be found?

When you greeted each other / your palms / like embers in cigarette stubs / red and hot / showed from your sleeves