The last one

I am charmed by
the way we tell Ghost Stories,
break teacups like it's a wedding,
hummous and tabouleh and doughnuts,
greasy in the swing dancing canola,
dresses and rolled up jeans,
street signs in Ukrainian,
and the way
if you lie down on the boardwalk
you might see the crooked trees of Hafford
winding the sky like
before plants and animals, deciding what to be,
jackrabbit dodging,
outcast-thick hair,
tangled like tunnels in mimicry,
or dancing.
I am charmed by
that I can't tell
who here is in love and who is
just happy.

Shoes and ships and

There is no such thing as
ceiling wax.
Instead, stalagtites
and chandeliers
and stucco.

upon listening to the geisha/salesperson recording

i will choke
myself until
that fake voice
rolls over and dies
in my throat
next time you
ask for it.

ghostwriting will kill us.

how long before i forget to use my tongue and my fingers for my own
words

after i have spent afternoons
turning your phrases, spoon-feeding
you the proper allusion,

until i starve?
(this is a rhetorical question) 

This morning

This morning you noticed
the stars only glow
with daylight accumulated.
Said,
they glow then go out.
So I will fashion you
a spaceship
and you can measure
your own glow from
ceiling to floor.

Thoughts on a Pig of Happiness

I am watching the
light from your ukulele
on the walls euphoric

The eustacian tube runs between
the ear and the pharynx
and is responsible for that thing.
that happens
when you close your eyes
that roars with tiny hairs vibrating
and opening to outside.

When you held in your hands
and in all the caulked-up
pockmarks and pimples and chickenpox scars
and dentures and spaces between where one part
of you meets another
you told me we held the universe
or at least the universal

Every piece of broken skin
caked in
sweat-salt
cork sandal soles is
a
part.

If you tell me again you
shaved your head for happiness
or that this root word, happ
is all turns and choice
and that these roots might
crack the side-
walk
rot,
I will kiss you
out of respect for your art,
of course.

introductions (overshare warning)

i know this place is too small
when i say stacey is
an old friend and
my favourite waitress at
the fake broadway diner
with the really nice
ex-boyfriend who works in
the kitchen but i really mean she's
my ex-girlfriend's ex-roommate
but i really mean she
used to listen to me have sex
and then bring me breakfast
in the morning, that's what i mean
when i say i know this place
is too small.

grain of salt

back when i used to
think you were sarcastic,
took everything with a grain
of salt.

now open your mouth and
i taste entire shakers spilled
across red diner tables,

lines of tiny white lies.

wish

this is a wish
for tights without holes
and a subway
to go home in.

the final catch-up

there is nowhere to hide my poetry at work so i will stash it here                                  when it flashes between my fingers
because gone are our days of notes in class and i would like to fold you                  
poems across a desk
when we are all doing things we’d rather not
for money
because five o’clock makes me scream and my coworkers have asked me
quietly to please stop screaming at my desk
but just think, i spend eight hours a day writing                                                   
history that wasn’t and money that isn’t,
eight solid hours without a poem,
so this is a secret
to keep us from screaming.

Bad Haikus

Attention! This blog
shows up real ugly on my
parents' computer.

Okay, we get it,
He drives kinda slow. Now stop
ragging on seniors!

Handrail

If I churned
like my stomach
I would be
prolific.

Furdale

It's how a place gets its name:
here they used to skin silver foxes.
On the beach?
They let the bones wash out.

Now the trees
have this tinge like
skinned foxes slicked
the leaves with silver.

I know this because now
I have a mosquito bite between
every one of my toes
I know this

The reason
you can't come here
after sunset is
ghost foxes.