XX

When you’re little,

Your best friends

Are magnadoodle,

Stuffed animals,

And Dad

Who holds your hand,

Lets you sit in the front

(mom says ‘no’!). 

When you’re little,

Dad shows you how

To get water from the ocean

(waves are scary!)

Water for sandcastles

And Sesame Street sand sculptures 

And 

Then something happens.

You learn to dodge waves

Hold your own nose

Swim farther than your friend

on a dare. 

And Dad’s not there

To carry your pail back

Or explain why the parakeet died

Or show you how to parallel park

On the left-hand side

Alone

In a blizzard.

 

 

Put Some Money in the Bucket

A man jams without permission 

unlikely positioned

between the street salesman’s table

and the Washington Deluxe bus.

His drum set is unconventional—

paint pails, cymbals,

everything and

the kitchen sink,

which I think he missed

as his wrists did a roll on the snare

he fashioned with care

from a milk crate.

He says, “The name of the song

is ‘Put Some Money in the Bucket’”

information that serves us both.

He has nothing, everything:

ill equipped for a talent

that I haven’t

(but always wished for).

Hearing his drums

reminds me of my rhythmless time,

longing for abilities best placed

in the hands of mystery:

hands that need no instruments but

the ones they gathered from street beats.

 

Mad Scientist OR Ode (on Ode) to the Peep

unfinished

When you microwave a CD, it sparks

says Thomas, mad scientist.

And on Easter

we experiment

with a solitary peep

the last of its row.

From across the cellophane window

staring tiny brown eyes

sit in shimmering yellow crystal.

 

Do you know what happens?

says Thomas

Don't do it

says I

But the climates of eatery and peepicide

are too forceful to resist

and this peep,

this last peep

(too soon to be heated)

is placed on a paper plate

turned on high

and expands

       expands

and morphs into

five times its size.

No longer a regular chick.

Not to be eaten.

To be enjoyed

only in the ridiculing laughter

of torturing giants.

Leaves molten residue on my

plate.

 

 

Title?

Floating between

eleventh and eighth floors

Pressing disconnected

emergency button 

Can it just fall?

Letting go of little wires

whatever is holding me

 

If it can

and it did

I’d go with it.

Never once a broken bone

But dead from a storm out your apartment

hitting the down button over and over

And now, stuck here.

 

The last time we spoke

the last word we spoke: “fine!”

isn’t fine at all.

Sweating now pressing every button there is

They are glowing,

They are staring stagnant

little yellow bulbs not moving.

 

 

No deathbed confession,

No paper to write one

When they find me

they can't know I’m sorry.

 

 

But doors open.

1103's slammed-shut door stares at me.