Lips curling from the humidity. Magnolia flowers, head-sized in your youth, sleepy-smelling, ginkgo splats rotting on the ground. Rotting on the sidewalk and in the brown steel rain gutters. Rotting orange and mealy in your shoe tread. Take care, now. Why. Why do the garbage cans still reek when you walk to work in the morning, when the garbage was scraped out an hour ago, you know because the truck woke you up, and before the sun’s high, even. Where’s all that hot garbage going. But it’s alright with the monophthongized “i”. And why’s the ginkgo with its dinosaur leaves. Why there, so bashful, you imagine, so embarrassed about stinking up the place. But secretly maybe a little proud, in the way only the shit-smelling destitute can be, prehistoric pride, to have made it this long. And maybe the smell’s only alright because you remember it, you remember it being there when you were a little boy. It’s historical. And if you could find other memories, deeper ones, only yours via a shaky, treacherous inheritance, the rest of it would be alright, too. If you could find the secret meaning of the toil that bore you. The toil that’s now yours.

i saw desperate sex underneath the holiday

even the tour bus was naked and blue

i saw secret men grab shiny fistfuls

of wish-wet coins at the fountain fold

and are you sure?

i saw angels scratching the skin under their halos

i saw a label: “made in the hollow earth”

and i’m not sure.

making a house in my mashed potatoes

can we squish this garbage into a world

with sticky jungle gyms for our kids

chisel punch through the bubble sheets

rip sound rings rattles broken windows

thread squares pulled screen door shimmer

step step step step swell of the six-string

five finger magazine coughed up out of

the neighbor’s mailbox like yesterday’s

nail bomb step step step boot puzzle piece

right angle roundabout glass on rubber

step step crunch four corner wet team

walks rolls step down the pitted street

map of all known and unknown pleasures

which will be pulled into straight lines

sawdust sprayed over drip drip dark

wriggle out of the asphalt up towards

the heat of the hum of the wince of the

subcontract street lamp light

squinting people smashed against

cops and disdain and rain

the apocalypse is sitting

on the sidewalk in front of the bank

human body shape disasters

a face like dodgeballs in a sack

nylon ensemble in tie dye

the ATM machine is warm

and purrs softly

and it is our mother

and we love her

playing hopscotch back in time

it cuts you down to soft parts

like wheat through a thresher

the muscles that never get stretched

cool girls with scary bedrooms

cliches that bad people love

it’s a miracle we all don't kill ourselves

shivering organic jukebox

strangling under a tongue

it’s a good miracle

twenty itchy cat-eyed bandits

sunder the collection tray

the pastor blushes embarrassed

the parish looks shyly away

plenty of worn out-people

find they have nothing to say

kitties spend it all on catnip

and sniff the night into the day

the flock wonders after their sins

squinting hard at their wallets thin

“Maybe if we all button up one more button

the Lord won't lead us astray.”

Afghan modes of reflection

when we turn Friday night

upside-down connection

and weak two-story trying

your dusty trepidation

never fails to horrify

groceries walk up the steps

dream gel cut down by the net

we don’t know what happened

inside of that hotel room

we think it might have been

a double barrel meteor show

we're pretty sure we heard

something glowing up from below