Let us compare notes, compare answers,
jot down first impressions, measures of dysfunction.
Who is guiltiest of what?
Who can be charged for what crime? Too late is too late.
The jury isn't out because there never was a jury.
And that's the twist. No one has judged you,
ashes blown into the sea. We are threadbare,
a testament of obscurity.
While you die slowly, we carve
memories into the bones,
fingerpaint our confusion.
Your conscience is annoying but
at least you think it's clean.
These are the measures of dysfunction.

Home Turf

I.

This field is hoping for a quick soliloquy--make the cameraman tear-up, then stop shooting. It's supposed to rain today anyway. It's not like anyone can tell what streaks their faces or paints the trees.

II.

"Write from the perspective of a piano, a stone, a different inanimate object. Write from the perspective of a Nazi, a timebomb, someone who is alienated, who needs some cookies or perhaps some cloudy weather."

III.

I like it when words form shapes in mid-air, each letter having personhood, personality. I can't picture numbers; I picture the word for that number instead, and yet they call that a learning disability.

IV.

"Pick a box, any box. Now choose an item in that box. Describe what it looks like, how it feels, its carbon atoms. Make it quick, for the ground is impatient. It thinks you're trying to own it again. Anyway, document what happens between molecules in matter and how the question, 'What's the matter?' can't be translated in French. Try to sympathize with the water. Try to sympathize with abandoned trains, weeds growing around immobile wheels, rust composing their path."

We fail when we're literal:
blisters on the pavement,
pockets trapped
in ice, in glass,
in suspension.
Even our grieving is polite,
only a suggestion, until we thaw.
No one is an angel; no one joins
other angels, wrapped in hope,
glowing bandages.
We are all afraid, we have regrets,
and we lie until blisters form,
surrounded by blood, our denial of ego.
When she asked if I believed in God,
I thought better than to answer.
Answers do not matter.
We fail when we're literal.
I am careful to avoid breaking skin,
because even flesh is more certain
than the stillness of winter,
the layers of ice protecting no one,
reinforcing nothing
except suspension.

as a pendulum does

The lights go out. Caring is a dim bulb.
We do it for profit, not so that anyone will read.

A careful hint ignites, electricity for ice.
She is on a separate plane. She is plain heading for trouble.

Pills are shrapnel, poking the inside walls, tearing.
A thought is a place, and any place is sacred.

But decisions have to be made, have to surface in the shallow
well of a throat, tiny plastic boats, precious cargo.

Your kiss is the harbor, but the lights went out.
Where is the lighthouse?

What'll It Be?

woman, named so
because she is a hu-
man with a womb--man,
named so because
he is without one.
no prefix. no need,
unless he's super
or delivers envelopes.

all hues looking for a suffix,
a binary, a fine line, the last
chromosome defined.
that's what we hang on--
the royal we, nails and fur,
because it's all about
the pink and blue,
nurture's cadence,
the soft question.