For Tom it started at 30.

A baby, a business, bread

always to pull from the oven.

Rick asks logistics

filler or intel

how important are the machines,

do you know the formulas?

Recipes you mean?

Yes all the pastry gets pulled

the night before.

Keep the spirals fingertip clean,

crimp the edges with a fork.

Is hell an overcoat and tiny dog, 

a downtown bistro with no meatless salads.

Or are you a lounge singer on a cruise ship

who passes all the primo fishing spots

and never gets to dock - -

BOBBY PINS

Do they drive you crazy crazy

the trails of women

amidst the good dog’s hair

anger, like in an Updike paperback

lethal  with vacation sand

is there anything to be done

like forgiveness, like sweeping

to merge the mess

or make an asterisk

something that won’t 

look worse

in daylight.

MAKING BREAD

I’m not good yet. Every time they have to tell me the steps again.

Sometimes I form snakes, or spliffs. Sometimes the cuts aren’t deep enough.

I don’t want to know, but I want to be good. I want a natural way.

You tell me with your eyes closed that you like to watch me

concentrate.  Fold clothes, lashes low. So I move slow –

fold and place and lift back up.

Balance trays, one arm, burnt buzzing.

Pat my hair. Laugh loud so the splash

will carry past the customers

right through the flour 

plumes.

WANTING TO WRITE A LIST

wanting to write a list remembering once driving with Alanna North into the mountains at night high on Stewart’s National Coffee Day coffee gushing as we turned old curves as we’ve known each other and love before and I was loving her for knowing me for being my old calm friend and frogs came down with the water as I told her how I’d been thinking how you probably don’t need me and we agreed that that might be ok maybe good my list my list  your laugh both when it is light and polite and when it is helpless and goofy like a kid the smiling lines at the corner of your eyes I look at your face to see the old man and he is young

ATTENTION RESOLUTION

The paragraphs take on cliff shapes, engulfed by a carpal tunnel time bomb tick tock hello alexa new mystery gadget next to neglected plants – aren’t we are all so innocent of our sins – the types of jewels that fill our potholes. Electric unlikely. And answers to questions. Algorithm lullabies. What is the temperature? Who is Nica Horvitz? Where should she go tonight? Who made you?

RYAN

My voice is a low boil his a cuckoo clock on opiates

gentle thing he shows me the glossy girls he’s known

and we scheme a life. Sacred are the funny ones,

the sunshine after its been put to bed.

DREAM BAR

It’s nice it’s dark

the music is selected

by the memory and hunger

of fidgety hands

the ice is smooth middle of the road

outside there is a junction, medium busy

and when you’ve stayed too late

the air is freshest

there is no social code exactly

but you will be ok

not Cheers, not Cha Cha

not about coffee (I’d like to drink my coffee at home)

not about dinner (I’d like to have eaten already)

but lots of excuses to stay

including coffee, including dinner

there are booths there are windows

there are people you know people you don’t

a song comes on that aerates

the diagonal cave

between your sternum and heart

you look around for the culprit

and the culprit is the sum

another universe

at last

GETTING REAL

The best I can be

the most myself

is a marble eyed kid

innocent and world wise

making jokes about time and animals

spilling water

being a ratio-portrait  

of nudity to dust curtain

surely the people

who lived here before us

had superior ferret spines and owl wings

better fern fronds to articulate

their foyers

now I slide double-socked

to the corner table

and let the steam

do the talking

little moment

away from you

where I might write

a poem

BEFORE HE'S BACK

Before he’s back I’ll walk to the hardware store

at the hardware store I’ll buy brackets to hang my shelf

from my shelf I’ll sling my garbage necklace

next to my necklace I’ll place Phil’s prayer hand candle,

the little vase from Montana, pictures of the ones I love

I’ll take my vitamins, do push ups, watch the rain

I’ll think of home and wonder where it goes

I’ll sleep alone in the borrowed sheets (now mine)

and check my phone, and hang the mirror up with tacks

that looks like jewels – 

because it’s difficult to belong

to anyone or any body

my self so self

included

(another) WEATHER POEM (another) RIP

rainbow snow wind rain

maybe it’s an RIP David Bowie thing

like anything is possible and everything’s fucked

though  the light is still so oh glorious

as heaven’s getting cool, real quick

and the weather’s just a daily disco

shocked strangers

on the street

THE BLUE

Wait can we go back to the blue

Ann asks can we show them the blue

so we tromp back to the bridge

and John disappears into the smallest barn,

the cat motel, to on-switch the rectangle lights

a few second flash – electric blue picture frame

gift for all the cars to come

and we stand back, bathed in neon

of some more drunk night

far from this valley

TAPS

I love you means vinegar means

I miss you all the time means

I wrote a poem for you called

“Recruitment”, it goes:

How about the racist construction boy

who wants our orphan cast iron, who lets his snot

shoot out onto the side walk mid-conversation,

how about my debutante friend with the underwear trust fund,

or the mustachioed Iranian from the truck driver family,

or Bri from Vivian’s Lounge, or Sarah who works the nightshift

I love you means I’m getting familiar with

your dreams, your dreaming

and I’m just as screwed

as you

FRIENDSHIP

The day I flew back to Troy Roscoe the nice wolf bit Luke’s hand while I was in the sky. Last night I wrapped the gauze between Luke’s fingers in the ugly light of a brand new bathroom, timid but tight, tied it off with book binding twine. The good people want to talk. You aren’t a family but be loyal and insane anyhow because,  why not - why not be an ecosystem built on love and pain instead of contracts. Friendship. Elise finds me in the conservatory between the wet plants and the white plants. We are tired and walk around. Years of walking around, years of plush chairs, sweet drinks, comparisons, contrasts. Mack’s eyes never open all the way. Lowell rides the exercise bike in a Betty Boop shirt. And my parents, they’re my friends. We fight and we fight. We wish we knew each other perfectly, without having to try, without having to try to try. I wrap the gauze with disconnect so the open flesh doesn’t make me faint. Somewhere in Albany Roscoe is sulking around, tired and ashamed. But he’ll be back. He’ll find the bloody gauze in the trash and bring it out to show us, hoping we will play.

THE INDIGNITIES OF DISCOVERY

Just like you I only have this

subtle smell

of the world right now –

and just like you I grow most golden

watching strangers be themselves

(the mothers who pull their children

to their chests, chaotic corners

in the hottest afternoons).

But I am not trapped.

So what to do with this misty gift?

I say my brain is bad but maybe that

is that just a flirting form,

old impulse to mess-announce

from the platform

of all love, assumed.

VISITING

Visiting is (either) gasping or just saying

fuck time and showing your teeth.

My smile’s just a breathing pattern.

The smoke is just the air, a contradiction.

The city’s spirit is a murky marble,

a callused pearl extracted from something fleshier.

It’s in the linoleum, it’s in the ferry terminal.

It’s in the grease of the barmaid’s hair.

And you in your hat, calling a cab.

And you in your hat, on loving loop.

And you against the water as it shows itself

more blue than any shame.

MAKING TAPES AGAIN

I’m not the same detective

I’m already old – it’s funny

I was so old to be so young

and now so young to be so old

(the older people laugh and moan)

but I shake eternal teenager –

and know this will transcend

my skin and hair. 

It’s in my voice, maybe.

It’s in my nervousness, baby.

Emma has a belly. 

The instinct is to see beyond the surface,

feel what’s really going on.

Beneath the impressive rind a new one twists,

and we are giddy to see “what’s up”.

What’s up. You in there.

You might be my newest, oldest friend.

Your mom and I were miserable, but we were happy.

We made each other laugh so long.

We got sick on blackberries.

We dreamed about you on the beach,

on the hill, from the floor bed.

We thought about stealing flavored chapstick.

but ultimately, we were good.