Conversion Service
Sliced sliver of fingernail from the thumb while dicing
peppers and red onion – since the truck flipped, they flew
computer-car-parts from in New Jersey – outside Hoboken
there is a similar ditch in which cars flip as they are driven
drunk. Swerving for a skunk, heavy with stink and child-
ish indifference, he said the worst part was the tick ripped
from his ankle, too drunk to feel the spiral
break in his clavicle, trickle of spill from his orbital
guard. Woke in a field of broken doors, clover, dry
prairie grasses. Beer cap popped on the edge of the wine
rack. Copper screws, titanium pins, he said, better than
they were before, new-fangled parts, he said, have clipped
his work legs. His thumb bleeding slightly, proud of himself
and the money he’ll save on an electronic magazine
subscription. Viles of cardamom, sage, garlic-salt like a skyline.
Vintage pornography stacked in a box beside full sleeves
of English Muffins. There ain’t no way to keep a good man
sober, he said, swigging from a bottle of beer and belching.
With his unslung arm he clears papers from the tray table, sets
a place. Above the blue flame, a hearty stew boils over.
Daphne’s Effect on a Cosmopolitan Personality Exam
Chains bending like steel bending like an orange peel’s
expectorant mist, the difference between satchel-hasp
and bridle, master lock. And fit. Into the darkness
like a thin gloved hand into the neighbor’s window,
conjugating fear and excitement: wha? Shiver: like this.
Blister. The sun will diffuse the darkness. Better now
than ever. Score your belongings with capital letters,
ladybugs trapped behind the dull glass fixture-cover:
Icarus beetle, we forgive you. Cut your prescience with
whatever’s most unavailable, uninterested. The fist
of moon is only stubborn so long as you’ll allow. If
massacre is the only means to maximize acreage, then
every king who’s ever beheaded is on to something.
A silver platter. Wicker catapult basket. Let us raise
a glass to sovereignty! Let’s be our own creative selves
and hope that will last us. There’s something to be said
of the licentious nard, that Himalayan plant used as salve,
the one Garcia Lorca mentioned sipping Colombian Roast
in the coffee shop on North and Paulina. Dawn was breaking.
Boxers or briefs is a standard question: boxer-briefs. I do not
find it difficult to cleanly fill in ovals, though I erase and begin
again, frequently. I let the poem stand, should there be one
to stand for. The bones of Mongolian dinosaurs are slightly radio-
active. The pigeons are coming back slowly, forgiving the winter
in each piece of bread released by thawing snowbanks. We will
all have a unique geochemical signature. It’s tragic. It is exactly
what you’d expect. It’s a mountain lion whimpering over the lost
black dress curled like a self-portrait in the middle of the street.
So when the flurries begin, when Mike Royko calls Dan Rather
a pompous ass I have to agree. I have no idea who I am
supposed to align with, I am only desperately trying to stay
in line: the ideas of time-space are within me; I am afraid.
Please have the patience to go on reading. Please forget
the evenings we shared behind the softball field. I have
ordered coffee. Please call my name when it’s ready.
Sliced sliver of fingernail from the thumb while dicing
peppers and red onion – since the truck flipped, they flew
computer-car-parts from in New Jersey – outside Hoboken
there is a similar ditch in which cars flip as they are driven
drunk. Swerving for a skunk, heavy with stink and child-
ish indifference, he said the worst part was the tick ripped
from his ankle, too drunk to feel the spiral
break in his clavicle, trickle of spill from his orbital
guard. Woke in a field of broken doors, clover, dry
prairie grasses. Beer cap popped on the edge of the wine
rack. Copper screws, titanium pins, he said, better than
they were before, new-fangled parts, he said, have clipped
his work legs. His thumb bleeding slightly, proud of himself
and the money he’ll save on an electronic magazine
subscription. Viles of cardamom, sage, garlic-salt like a skyline.
Vintage pornography stacked in a box beside full sleeves
of English Muffins. There ain’t no way to keep a good man
sober, he said, swigging from a bottle of beer and belching.
With his unslung arm he clears papers from the tray table, sets
a place. Above the blue flame, a hearty stew boils over.
Daphne’s Effect on a Cosmopolitan Personality Exam
Chains bending like steel bending like an orange peel’s
expectorant mist, the difference between satchel-hasp
and bridle, master lock. And fit. Into the darkness
like a thin gloved hand into the neighbor’s window,
conjugating fear and excitement: wha? Shiver: like this.
Blister. The sun will diffuse the darkness. Better now
than ever. Score your belongings with capital letters,
ladybugs trapped behind the dull glass fixture-cover:
Icarus beetle, we forgive you. Cut your prescience with
whatever’s most unavailable, uninterested. The fist
of moon is only stubborn so long as you’ll allow. If
massacre is the only means to maximize acreage, then
every king who’s ever beheaded is on to something.
A silver platter. Wicker catapult basket. Let us raise
a glass to sovereignty! Let’s be our own creative selves
and hope that will last us. There’s something to be said
of the licentious nard, that Himalayan plant used as salve,
the one Garcia Lorca mentioned sipping Colombian Roast
in the coffee shop on North and Paulina. Dawn was breaking.
Boxers or briefs is a standard question: boxer-briefs. I do not
find it difficult to cleanly fill in ovals, though I erase and begin
again, frequently. I let the poem stand, should there be one
to stand for. The bones of Mongolian dinosaurs are slightly radio-
active. The pigeons are coming back slowly, forgiving the winter
in each piece of bread released by thawing snowbanks. We will
all have a unique geochemical signature. It’s tragic. It is exactly
what you’d expect. It’s a mountain lion whimpering over the lost
black dress curled like a self-portrait in the middle of the street.
So when the flurries begin, when Mike Royko calls Dan Rather
a pompous ass I have to agree. I have no idea who I am
supposed to align with, I am only desperately trying to stay
in line: the ideas of time-space are within me; I am afraid.
Please have the patience to go on reading. Please forget
the evenings we shared behind the softball field. I have
ordered coffee. Please call my name when it’s ready.
