poverty porkchops

Dear X,
I stomp on the month of you
make November’s Decembers in January
get your ghost dressed and host
it on telephone wires
off in somewheres
desert so grainy not dusted
you go back behind the general store
walk inside the reeds to the machine
lay flat on its back with my name on it
my name an open field
and i grey when you ask for directions
old desert rocks and
hard drives discards of last sun
sets
still await no apology
instead you show up in boots, poor penmanship
your clumpety billy clubs a gong show
on the bedroom door
man your character stand supright
silhouetted by decades of gallops
and court accolades
i sit and lick the bowl clean for your dowry
lean on that harmonium key til’ I’m hard
of hearing sustain the plaintive drone
your initials on my rectangles
invoke an intermediary
she’s neutral
less bitter tones that don’t flatter
a woman my age
any age really

Diablo

It’s the day of the devil and you ride it out you can’t cower at times like this, it’s now that you let your horns shine. Timidity doesn’t suit you hovering three feet over the sidewalk in broad daylight not caring about glaring strangers. You’re finally out and proud. They’re writing graffiti on your wall. it’s the wall you dreamed about all those years. You have three working ladders only one actually works but you get used to it, Climbing outside the walls on to the rooftop laying on your back with the fields gently swaying. You see teenagers sleeping in the landing acting guilty at the front door Leaving footprints on the wall on the roof and ceiling. You talk to the exterminator personally like he came over for a tinder date apologizing for the mess you promise it won’t happen again. It will be different next time. He says lady you think I ain’t seen worse? I’ll take you away from all this, we’ll have a maid. we won’t need an exterminator and You can get back to the important things, like breakfast lunch dinner snacks movies novels and the river the river the river

VIRAL

you seem to be eclipse

racing from your decrepit shack
with abandon

early in the morning young girls homebound

missing their circles

identical decadence

her mother calls her neverending

static regenerating bamboo

clay or sun or light bulb no moon
your interruptions dispel the silence

authoritative, he listens his

reflection in grasses

contagious

when the moon sets it asserts it’s light

you’re away so i keep the lion’s share

enchanted by your goat hoof
you stuff it with gold leaf

and fine italian meats

truffles, parchment
then parade the peacocks

already disappointed

before you celebrated

crawling under your belly
amorphous whites and greens

formless and immutable
you lost the wrong monument

most unlike a mountain

a mute molecule
a plant, then a virus