Greenpoint, Brooklyn

19May08

Austin to Brooklyn
the van feels light
as if something has gone,
someone

then back again.

White borscht, golombki
still flush in her face
she ascends,
guitar and pilot
chasing her scarlet wake,
no reentry.

Nothing is where she belongs.

It goes like this:
tank full,
she lights a fire
that burns us all
long and quiet,

the van rolling indiscriminately
forward.

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The guys on four

16May08

The guys on four
swing clubs made of composite
marketing bullshit
in their cubicles,

say things like
jet skiing in the rain feels like
a thousand needles in your face,

marketing doesn’t work.

Save three months salary to buy a ring
worked. So did

renting is throwing away your money.

Maybe high performance synthetic
moisture wicking
fabric
is all you need to
win,

but then
this much I just know:
that hunting and gathering
would only cost so much
life,

would leave me too much left
to spend.

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National Liquor

13May08

Guizhou, your rivers dizzy
the mouths of celebrated thieves.
There has never been purity.

Western boys wahoo piss for beer
from corner stores,
swollen from heavy lifting,
centerfolds.

The spirit of the Chishui,
a warm sixer of Pabst;
both dull the ache for pussy,
real friends,
reason.

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No Right Arm

12May08

behind a lady with no right arm
I feel rude, both arms swinging
to-and-fro

so I will ask her if I can load her car
or no I will not,
just smile, eyes above her shoulders

until I get it, that
some lose arms like others lose minds,
and it feels right to look,

to respect that for all our losses
there are still gardens, still enemies,
still things to hold back in our hearts.

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8 More Weeks

10May08

- For Kelly, Mother’s Day 2008 -

Boxer’s arms
for ankles,
thick and worn
from the long season.

Taught skin pulls
inches from nowhere,
everywhere

your neck, ears
are pregnant
gorgeous
miracles

I love you,
Violet Beauregarde,
how you laugh
when I whisper my sweet
blueberry.

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Watchpots Never

08May08

Well armored crawfish
boiling alive
with ears of corn, potatoes

aches too much like news
to be celebratory.

Are these leaning towers of mud
that pock the backyard rivers of Houston
where suburban cray catch up
on far removed atrocities

and think
still, we are free?

Chimneys that as a boy
were snake markers,
could never get too close
or we might fall for
forever

now seem
like sensible places to hide.

I can’t save you,
écrevisse,
can’t keep you from the pots
any more than I can
my own from greater boils

where people taught not to be heroes
become granite walls,
where boys too rowdy for the SAT’s
float to the top,
turn red,

served steaming.

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