hold the ham

when i woke up
i noticed again
the spot where you used to
charge your phone,
that you were the last person
to do all the laundry,
how you propped up
all the pictures
and it seems completely unbearable.
inside this apartment cooks
a terrible red stew.
just below the floor boards
it simmers. at first it was fired
with anticipation and now
it's the saddest energies of absence,
the slow desperation of a
rolling boil.
i have to drink it with everything
i do. a cup for walking the
hallway, a bowl as i lay
alone in bed. soup pools at my feet
in the shower. it's no
good that you're out there
drinking too. i bet you find it in
your pockets, in your hands,
in your mouth between bites
and all this rich meatiness
is killing me.

you're glowing

there was a girl coming up the alley
and i could see her in my rear-view mirror.
her shoes had neon tongues
and she was drinking mountain dew
from the bottle
but somewhere on top of her big, blond
head was a beige beanie.
she ate a meal of
ice cream cake with radishes for dessert.
she walks the alley flicking bad
song lyrics into peoples' cars.
she'll stay like that,
i think.
her clunky, badly lit lot in life
is to glow dumbly
into parked cars.

this is a rock

what if i laid on my gritty floor all morning?
what if i lay here and pretend to have died
mysteriously? i could look good dead.
i could place a pot of flowers by my feet
and crumple some candy in my mouth. it could
have been a choke or another accident.
maybe they'll assume i'm really something,
a spectacle of sorts. maybe they'll keep me
fresh, leave me to sun that spills through the
kitchen window.
i ask only that you water my plants,
eat all the food from my fridge,
cancel my credit card and
take my nephew to the theater
because i spent so much money
on those tickets.

table and chairs

here are the plaid chairs we share
when we drink coffee and eat food
with cheese and deposit wrappers and mail
into our pockets when we stand up.
i saw you the other day
with a letter jammed in your pants.
i thought about what
a little note in a pink envelope could
say but i didn't muster up the concern to ask.
whatever that letter meant would
stay creased inside anyhow,
showing it's true glowing glue
to it's one reader
who'd shoot the words from a distance
with long, stringy sex lines
and nails. then those pink pages are plaid.
i think there are hunter plaid stories to tell
in bars, with dark plaid feelings
hemming them in, making full plaid pictures.
there are fall plaids
coming strong and they mismatch me,
always make me look fat and sad.
i bellow, i blow my nose into old
flannel sheets, crammed
with such similar colors and patterns.

sink your pits in

you're new
and the sun is shining.

i have lots of stinky wonder
and wishing to contend with.

i am not a paul or pat person,
i am a home-heating device
and a lot like coffee in the morning.

could i force you to have
a conversation with me
about something i'm not familiar with
so i can pin myself down
and you can punch me?

that's how it normally plays out.

maybe we shouldn't talk much
anymore but these perky cups of coffee
make sitting still tough.

how can a person make a proper decision
hopped up on coffee and slugs?

taxis

it's amazing to think of things like
colorful salmon skin
and fresh toads and how children
can kill them without noticing too much.
somehow they just turn into stuffed animals
with their insides jangling.
somehow i don't appreciate
any amount of money until it's gone
and the weekday collapses around an empty hole
where i kept my accounts.
let's go to the free beach where they sell
free apples and mud dumplings!
it's very important to eat.
when i'm completely sun-tired
and sand-rid of
another obnoxious day
i'll let you know.
i'll let you have me at a flat rate.
i'll let you come find me
and drag my soggy body around.
please wave my arm politely at the outer parts of town.

so long insides

i was once a caramel caterpillar.
i lived in a small space between
some white bricks
and i licked the mold with
all my fingery feelies.
i felt the grooves of old cement,
laid down in the cold, wet dreams
inside them. there was
anxiety in the lifestyle.

i don't know what i am now. i
could be a dumb dog or one of those
flat-faced cats. maybe all the other
stuff is gone and i'm a bowl of
thick, white milk,
a hunk of stringy meat still
sitting on the table.

maybe a cloud of dust will drop by
and you'll feel me dig out
some change. i am two scratchy eyes
and an old backyard.
my stomach is a long, pink walk
to sunny bench.