--IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW LOUD OR LATE INTO THE NIGHT YOU CALL SOMEONE’S NAME, IF THEY ARE GONE, THEY ARE GONE

  

Migraine

Sunspots and nausea,

numbness in my left hand,
the sledgehammer next,
Satan gripping a chisel,
then the Big Bang
where stars slam
into planets like boiling bombs.
Hiroshima was nothing.
Just look at this.
By tomorrow, though,
the earth will split and settle,
oceans fill.
A new sunrise is going to lift its proud breast over the Cascades,
and the first few dinosaurs
will roll on the ground,
wrestling like pups.

 

The Truth Is

Her skin was dull and powdery

as a moth.
She drank laxatives.
Her breath always smelled like cloves
of garlic.
At night she had flatulence and her snoring often
sent me to sleep in the other room.
A lot of people
told me I could have done better
but those are the same idiots
that don’t know the first thing about love.
 

 

This Year

Things are different.

My son wants a machete,
my wife a divorce.
The solicitor said something about breast cancer.
When I opened the sliding door just now
artic air swooped in and molested me,
but there was a Technicolor
rainbow in the sky,
broken at one end.
I sat down
on the lump of our honeymoon sofa,
next to a plastic tree
staring at strands of limp tinsel
and cheap, ceramic balls.
I told it, “Merry Christmas,”
hoisted my glass.
It was red to the brim and
I had other bottles,
so at least that hadn’t changed.

 

Lasik

I need new eyes and so

they slice my corneas with a blade and
pull the flaps back,
shoot improved sensors into my pupils,
solder rims in place,
give me drops and huge welder sunglasses
Elvis might have once worn.
A week later the world is
clear and colorful.
I can see fingerprints on the far door
where you’d lean,
dripping from the bath,
and ask for a towel.
I can see the stubby lark in a tree
and the neighbor kid kissing a girl.
On the way home from work
I stop off at the graveyard
and rip flowers from the roots,
smear the dirt across my eyes,
tuck it up under the lids until it burns
and tell myself,
There, that’s better.

 

Switch

Everything is exaggerated and dull.

I think I hear your fat cat yawn.
He’s forgotten how to purr.
The lock on the bathroom door has rusted.
There is a burnt out bulb
in the ceiling next to the water stain
shaped like Argentina.
We should turn the heat down two degrees
to save a few nickels.
Tomorrow I’ll wear a blue tie
but it won’t matter because
my boss is a jerk.
his breath always smells like coffee and cloves.
As you shudder,
I come to
and realize just how turned around we’ve gotten.
You’re supposed to be the bored one,
and me the bull,
pounding away on top.

 

 

I Can Hear Your Heartbeat

When we are through running we flop down

on hard/soft corn stalks that hit our spines like bars.
You say, “I can hear your heartbeat all the way over here.”
We are surrounded by green and shadows and the moon moving through a charcoal cloud.
Neurotic as I am, I can’t help but think it’s a sign.
You swing around, a coil, a spring, boomeranging.
“Kiss me quick,” you say, “and put some heat on it.”
I go slow then fast then it’s just an unfurling of some flag inside of me
that’s been seeking you all this time.
Hours later we come up for air.
“Hey, hi,” I say.
“Wow,” you say.