Once More With Feeling

Once More With Feeling

Once more with feeling,
and then again, without.

Startle the pigeons.

Try it low and flat,
so absent of panic that
I am alarmed.

Lose the triumphantly raised fist,
but sure, give me your hands
upturned, reaching,
wrapped around my throat,
my pulse on your wrists.

With gusto, with force,
the way you would eat alone, in the evening,
after not eating all day.

And again,
haltingly, as if struggling
with pronunciation or legibility.

Kick aside the podium
to show me how much you love me,
and stub the microphone out
like a cigarette.

Ask a question you do not expect anyone to answer,
and wait, patiently
until someone speaks,
most likely me.

Use the House Against Itself

Use the House Against Itself

Smash the dishes in their shelves.
Take a shovel to the oven, the windows.
Rifle glasses at the ceiling. Rip handfuls

of blinds from the wall. Fling forks
into the walls like darts, and hang
from the blades of the fan until

they snap off. Use the house against
itself, level the place. Unbury every
covered thing, even the mud

beneath the floorboards. Pull the bricks
from the wall to see how they land.
Wreck the house. Rebuild it into rubble.

The Cutest Thing I Have Ever Seen

The Cutest Thing I Have Ever Seen

A cute thing begs hyperbole,
rhetorical questions:
aren’t you just the cutest...

It is little, an it, a thing, small
and low to the ground.
We bend to it, make ourselves

smaller, and squeal in baby voice.
Speech gets tiny and high
to match what is cute, a dialect

of cooing and mock surprise.
We widen our eyes at
the helpless little creature,

it is so small, after all, and
all alone in the big bad
world, weak and can get

picked up by any pair of hands.
In the presence of what
is so cute that we cannot stand it,

we want to eat this thing up,
to protect it by eating it,
hiding it from any pain.

Cork

Cork

Cork is talented with holes
because it is inlaid with them.

Cork can close them up,
can crawl into a bottle’s mouth

and silence the wine
in its throat and belly. Cork

welcomes the nail and pin.
It is good at getting pierced,

at gripping the sharp edge
back. Similarly, we are gifted

in loss. Experiences fall
from us as they happen, baby

teeth, jettisoned potential.
People leave, get shipped off

to other dimensions. Even
memories go away, burn out

like stars. Let us learn from
cork, from our talent for having

things taken away, our
adoration of the irretrievable.

In Broad Daylight

In Broad Daylight

In the light, in the fat-tipped fingers
of light flung on earth. Easily seen

by the naked eye, readily identified.
Acts on display, splayed under the sun.

In public, available equally to passers by
and nearly-imperceptible lifters of drapes.

Wide light, amoral, indiscriminate.
A climate best suited to pleasantries

or exhibitionists. Well-lit, unflinching,
the conditions that promote noticing,

awareness. A sequence of events
rendered undeniable, plain as day,

true. An occurrence to be viewed,
witnessed. The authority of surface.