I’d walk home and walk
over those sleeping in
the streets, looking in
at the dentist office
where—swear to God—
a woman slept in a dentist
chair. And then a massage
parlor where I could see
people sleeping on all
of the massage tables. Continue reading
but they were always going too fast.
I’d read about people having their legs
chopped off. So I didn’t want to risk it. Continue reading
You wouldn’t have fit in here, either. Riding the train alone again, I stood at a window and watched the landscape. Continue reading
You said more than you meant to on the edge of Salt Lake City,
where the one-eyed woman panhandled outside our room
and shell casings littered the Salt Flats. You let a lizard run
circles through your fingers. I had never seen someone pick up
the desert. I had never heard distant gunfire. Continue reading
When I die, trap my soul in a birdcage Continue reading
My boots slip on the ice and I struggle to stay standing
and think, “This? Is this how I die? On a sidewalk
some idiot neighbor forgot to shovel, taking the dog out for a walk?”
Continue reading
Crows and starlings scatter at the shotgun crack of the ice
shifting and splintering into blue-gray shards.
There is water running in the falls again, a thin trickle
moving beneath the snow
just enough to break through thoughts of winter. Continue reading
I never had the guts to rip a one-night-stand off
or actually, I never thought of doing it at all, back when I was single. Continue reading
The doctor laughs when I tell her my plan
was to give birth in the back yard, like my cat did her kittens
that it just felt like the safest place to me right now. Continue reading
Don’t bake me a birthday cake
this year.
Let’s go to Wawa and
buy a carton
of our old cigarettes Continue reading
