one day, from morning to dream
1.Morning Drizzle, Chicken Little
Man in self-argument crossing the street:
“You better wash your mouth out with soap!” “No, you better—”
“Umbrellas?”
“Umbrellas?”
“Umbrellas?”
“Umbrellas?”
another man ventured through thickening air—
2.Office Hours
You changed your religious affiliation to FOOD
Then:BANDAGES
Then:ORGIAST
FOXTROT
ROENTGEN
TANDOORI
D played BYLINED for 72 points!
D played CANOODLE for 96 points!
D played ENABLERS for 65 points!
“Scrabble?” —student head through the doorway—
did he think you’d be plotting against carnage—
3.Critique
—mandated
interactions with chairs your corporation of atoms its forced mergers
with air and food was it any wonder
that extending a hand meant “‘Tears,’” you said,
tapping the stanza—“Don’t they often
accompany ‘heart’”?
4.Someone Else’s Cake
She frowned off the sugared flower.
Asked if they’d used butter to beat
the batter.
Did it suffer from nuts or eggs or fruit?
She dug her thumb
into the bother.
5.Sixth and Cumae
Some aftermath camped atop a subway grate, some
boxed-n-muttering, perpetually
hungry and insane—
“You look like you want me, but you
don’t—” she spat in disgust. “Go make technology happy.”
6.Selfie
Lips pursed—right index finger
tipping the chin—the look of
Um—
7.Happy Hour
—a feeling in your body as if you were flinging up
handfuls of coins—
your body rushing back into your arms—
“I dunno, I wanted it to be more—” he
eddied his fingers, punctuated stars.
8.Going Under
“You cannot get ready,” her vinyl purse,
“you cannot get ready for God, you cannot get ready,” her stout legs,
her Sunday-gloved
grip on the hour—
Shoes black
patent leather low
pumps—
Tapping, “you cannot get ready,” she dug
into the tunneling train a wide
berth—
for blessing you and judging you, how you weren’t
“ready for God”—
serenely
deeming you lost—
You watched her purse swing
under the East
River—
9.A Book Before Bed
…Despite this expense, some epitaphs were resolutely nihilist: ‘Into nothing from nothing how quickly we go;’ while non fui, fui, non sum, non curo (I was not, I was, I am not, I don’t care) was so common that it was often abbreviated to simply nffnsnc…
ttfn—
ta ta for now—
10.Mon Semblable, Mon Frere!
—inexplicable clown wig lurching away with a haul-swing of coats—