Oh typewriter, you are not rubber,
your bouncing is 2/3rds metaphoric
and 1/3 physical shaking which is
true of love too although different
proportions.
Oh cup of tea, I neglect you because
you are too hot then suddenly
rediscover you and feel somewhat
guilty, ditto Rothko’s early
un-Rothko-y paintings.
By 5 in the morning,
the vampire movie budget
has exhausted itself
on nightgowns. Whatever’s
left over is spent on blood.
Once my father looked at me
mordantly, took off his glasses
and put them back on upside down.
Happy childhood.
I was burning like an improperly
cast bronze head of the sun
coming out of a wheat field.
I missed a belt-loop intentionally
in case anyone thought
I was overly concerned
with appearance.
Appearance was bicycling
up the three-mile hill
the apple orchard roadside stand
and cold cider.
You took yourself out
of the ocean like an election
you had won.
Either the inkblot
an angel struggling with a bat
or a pelvic exam.
The restaurant staggered
trying to remain authentic
under modern remodeling
like a mule carrying
a heavy burden of running shoes.
How important is the component
of talking to nothingness
in talking to dogs, fires,
bourbon, the kettle, everything
that happens once, life
or not and you when gone?
Every poem starts out in Russian
then passes through French
sometimes backwards into Greek
then forward to grunts and whines
and scrapes and frog-croaks
and footsteps getting further away.
Maybe you will sit on the table
while the doctor says your heart
is regurgitating, on the walls
certificates of learning to talk like that.
There is no way to say regurgitate
in tulip but 15,000 ways to say heart.
Chaos falls apart so orderly.
It seemed unfair to not know
where I was going
and think I was going in the wrong direction.
Even though I only had red thread,
I liked the way it turned out.