We forget grass stains.
Scabs turn smooth, neglecting scars.
Multiple washes
remove our worn grooves.
Chipped teeth loosen and regrow,
aging like clockwork.

Living room corners
harbor me during parties,
anchored by snack trays
away from the threat
of kitchen bustle and heat.
Conversations skip
past me, I listen,
nodding politely, and smile,
trapped in false concern.
She skitters around,
bouncing between small circles
and offering drinks.

While grey-green clouds loom,
raindrops wave-crater puddles,
soaking everything.

Smoking on the porch,
I will leave the door open,
listen to the news.
Sometimes, hungry, I
bolt toward the kitchen food-cache
and then to my bed.

I forget the door.

She chastises my smoking,
my eating, the dog.

The dog will sneak in,
terrorize the cat at night,
escape by morning.

She loves that damn cat.

I apologize again,
ignored at dinner.

The dog bays--then still,
pointing at squirrels and waiting
for permission, blood,
the moment to move.
We let her in on cold nights,
she sleeps at our feet
and chases the cat.
They wrestle: gentle, aware.
The cat welcomes her.

Theory

You remember standpoint theory. You think about your gender in regards to your standpoint, your cultural positioning, your world view. You recognize the privilege in your soft androgyny. You recognize the ubiquitous pressures steering you toward a particular masculinity become weaker the more privilege you garner. You think to your own social capital. You try to see yourself as a heterosexual, white, educated, middle-class man. You notice your view of your position is clouded. You can not see yourself clearly, the assumed normalcy of your position creates fog and prevents your immediate analysis. You recognize you are the constant demographic. You understand every sitcom on network television because you are the presumed audience. You understand the dramas and romances of every film because the white-washed assumed cultures of their protagonists, their antagonists, their universes are the same assumed culture you live inside. You realize you have never explained an argument from the white perspective. You have never been asked, “As a white man....” Your answer is the safe answer, the constant answer, the answer of society. As a heterosexual man, your answer is the answer of every president, the answer of power, of privilege, of permission. You notice the image in the mirror is the image of the oppressor but even your guilt over the cultural history of the body you inhabit is a privilege. You realize guilt and androgyny are, for you, indulgences of class, of your standpoint. You recognize you have the time to consider your guilt and revel in it without consequence. You realize the ease of white androgyny compared to the pressure of normative standards of masculinity combining with specific cultural standards of masculinity in the face of those normative standards. You like to think the consideration of others increases your objectivity, the knowledge of the society built around you which you have accepted by omission of protest, which you have accepted via your continued presence. You hope your education is enough to guard you against the title of appropriator, studier, observer. You hope your quite androgyny, in attitude more than body, serves as some form of quiet protest to your dominate position. You hope you present an alternative, if only a soft one. You try lending your voice when you hope it can help. You strive to understand. You hope. You hope. You hope you expand your glance, your view. You hope.

Institutions

You think of your family and how they shape and mold you, seep into every story, dominate every personal history. You think of your sister, five years older than you, forcing you and your younger brother to play house. You remember playing school while she taught you and your brother. You remember the collaboration in the games, the peacefulness, the lack of aggression. You remember wanting to play fight with your brother but the game morphing into karate school with your older sister as the sensei. You remember wanting to look like your favorite wrestlers, wanting so badly to simulate their face paint. You remember your sister learning the patterns and painting your face with her make-up and lip-glosses. You remember wearing her choir-dress to play as the kilted Scotsman Rowdy Roddy Piper. You remember appropriating her showgirl Halloween costume’s neon pink, tailed blazer, complete with requisite glittered trim and cuffs, for a ring jacket matching the flamboyant entrance attire of other wrestlers. You think how television permeates through your stories along with your family. You remember recording free previews from the Disney channel when it still had to be ordered. You remember watching The Mickey Mouse Club, Bonkerz, The Care Bears, and My Little Pony. You remember watching the violence of Terminator 2: Judgment Day after family trips to the beach and almost wearing out your copy of Gremlins 2: The New Batch. You remember watching the dating show Singled Out over dinner with your family and now watching King of Queens or The Newly Wed Game. You think back to trying to convince your brother of the merits of the new My Little Pony cartoon while he watched Michael Bay’s Transformers films. You remember your mother indulging your love of low budget horror films and wrestling tapes on trips to laundry-mat video stores. You remember watching and rewatching your sisters favorite musicals. You catch yourself humming songs from Grease, The Sound of Music, and Rent. You realize you can not decide if you admire Tyler Durden from Fight Club more than Billy Bigelow from Carousal. You think to Bam Bam Bigelow, one of your favorite wrestlers because of his flame-themed outfit and fire tattoos on his skull. You remember your brother watching wrestling with you but leaving the room bored, asking you to retrieve him if the women wrestlers came on again.

Body

You think of your height. You remember your shoulders towering over the shoulders of your classmates standing in line in grade school. You remember standing the back of photos of family and organizations and any group photos with standing. You remember walking gangly at fourteen through record stores and bumbling past strangers in the isles, tripping over your feet. You think of your shoes. You lament most stores do not carry size fifteen but lauded online shopping trips find them occasionally. You remember basketball as a constant, lingering suggestion. You remember making the seventh grade B-team and sitting on the beach, cheering on your teammates throughout the season. You remember being kept on the team because of your spirit. You remember gaining weight in high school and becoming more comfortable with your size. You remember the nagging suggestions to play football once you reached high school. You remember giving into the suggestion. You remember playing offensive tackle, the guaranteed violence of every play matched against the defensive line with the wholesome goals of protecting your quarterback from the blitz or giving your running back room to run. You remember laughing at the dichotomy. You remember moving in the middle of high school and ending your football career after your second concussion. You remember your mother’s happiness about this decision to protect your large body. You remember missing the grind of practice but not the stress of games. You remember squeezing into school bus seats in full pads with your teammates on the way to games. You remember auditioning for mascot at your new school. You remember lounging on the school bus with the bag containing your costume under the seat as the rest of the cheerleaders chatted about classes at the new high school around you. You remember laughing at the new dichotomy. You suddenly think of dancing. You remember finally becoming comfortable enough in your body to dance well. You think back to four proms, countless formals, and infinite nights dancing in bars. You remember junior prom. You remember being told you made a good boyfriend because of your size, because you were so masculine. You remember not taking the compliment well, smiling awkwardly, feeling disconnected from your body. You remember tall girlfriends complimenting your height, making them feel comfortable wearing heels and boots. You think back to hugs given by your mother and father and being taller than both of them. You remember your father’s jokes about your weight and becoming a vegetarian for six months. You remember when your father took up power lifting and could bend quarters, how people often mistook his mountains of muscles for fat. You remember laughing at this third dichotomy.

Language

You think of your brother and his many nicknames with the family. You think of Cake and Boo and Cakey. You try to think of your own pet names with the family but only remember abbreviations, shortenings. You remember your father calling you son like he did your brother. You remember your mother calling you sweetie like she did with your brothers and sisters. You feel a lack, a hole where your own language should sound, your own word. You think of your name. You think of the spelling and the missing ‘e’ and the pride you take in the simplicity. You remember meeting girls in fourth grade with the same name, with the same spelling, and asking your mother about it. You remember her telling you your spelling was most likely the more feminine way of spelling your name but she liked that spelling better. You ask about your family, searching for namesakes or reasons for your name, your spelling, your word. Your mother tells you the name begins with you. You remember feeling hollow then, empty of history. You ask where your name came from, wondering where your word, your place holder gifted from your parents, originated. You mother tells you she simply always liked the name. You remember the dissatisfaction with her answer. You remember frowns and the bitter, tinny taste of fought-back tears. You remember wanting something solid, you remember wanting a boy’s spelling of your word. You research your name now, curious of the etymology. You find your name has history, if not in your family. You find your name dates back centuries. You find your solid ground in your word. You find your name comes from the word quarry. You smile in your new fact, in your name which comes from stone, from inside the earth, from mining, from labor. You suddenly slow your smile curious why the fresh masculinity of your name brings such joy. You think of rocks and pits and wonder how these words relate to you past your name and their shared history. You realize you are not that solid. You think of the girls in the fourth grade with the same name and wonder if they know the same story for the word. You realize it is not a shared word. You realize the name only becomes as solid as you are solid. You realize suggesting the name to friends with coming children is not suggesting earth, or strength, but suggesting you, your story, the meaning you have attached to yourself. You stop researching your name. You start writing it.

Before You Were Born

You think of life before you were born. You suddenly picture streamers sailing across Japanese wrestling rings thrown out of adoration for the wrestlers. You trace the streamers back from the ring to the throwers who are lost in the crowd. You realize how the streamers, red and green and purple and orange, symbolize influence. You realize life before you were born is life while you were born and life immediately after you were born. You wonder what happens to the streamers once they are swept under the ring, after the matches, after the crowd has left. You store the pageantry of Japanese pro wrestling for the moment. You think of your father. You remember his face full of stubble smiling under a mustache and trucker cap at a bundle of blankets. You sleep or cry somewhere in the sea of blankets under a head full of new hair. You think of the faded photograph which imprinted this image in you, the unmatched but barely recalled outfit of your father. You remember his lack of a fashion sense, his sweatshirts matched with scrub pants. You think of the eighties. You think of the excuses of excess and a good economy. You remember your father’s Cincinnati Bengals jersey and the bumper sticker on the black briefcase which held your birth certificate. You think of your father’s disappointment watching the Bengals lose the Super Bowl when you were seven months old. You think of the halftime show, Be Bop Bamboozled in 3-D, the first ever network broadcast in 3-D, introduced by Bob Costas, sponsored by Diet Coke, and hosted by Elvis Presto. You remember your grandmother’s love of Elvis Presley and the room in her house dedicated to him. You remember other celebrities vaulted to ideas. You remember your father watching and laughing at old Clint Eastwood films. You remember silent cowboys smoking in Italian fake-Mexicos firing their revolvers in extreme close-ups while Ennio Moricone scores whistled along in the background. You remember your mother’s crush on Patrick Swayze and your father’s crush on Sandra Bullock. You think of Public Enemy and Spike Lee but remember your father listening to Alabama and Johnny Cash and Conway Twitty. You remember your mother listening to The Beach Boys. You remember Van Halen. You remember your father blaring I’m Your Ice Cream Man in his truck without any trace of irony. You revel in the lack of irony. You think of your grandfather. You think of cycles. You realize your grandfather defined manhood for your father as a child as your father defined manhood for you as a child. You think of your grandfather in the army, in armor, in Vietnam. You think of your grandfather’s funeral. You remember his obituary only mentioning only his retirement from the paper-mill where he worked for decades. You think of your father joining the army out of high school. You think back to cycles. You realize why your college education was a vital suggestion, a demand, from your father and grandfather. You realize how they shaped the man they wanted you to become. You realize everything shaped the man you would become. You think back to the streamers discarded under a wrestling ring in Japan. You realize they once hung spooled in stores, were manufactured in a factory. You think of influence. You think of stories.

Acorns

Collecting acorns,
I hold them to my forehead,
a spectral planting.
I mound wet seed-beds,
streaking my face, brow, and scalp
with handfuls of mud.
The acorns settle,
buried, shoaled against my skin,
rooting through the years.

Do not threaten me
with sleep, you shit-filled morning,
for I breathe coffee.
Do not crust my eyes,
for my dilated lens
hungers for the sun.
Do not slow my steps,
for I have stretched and yoga-ed
and centered my chi.
Do not wither winds,
for I have dawned a thick coat
and challenged the breeze.
And do not kiss me
with warnings of the coming
day, for I am bliss.

If I walk alone
along the morning foothills,
I refuse to see
the moon-dawn glowing,
craggy-blues draining: slow, slow,
Tennessee Autumn
ebbing in rust-reds
across brush-fields and forests,
disappearing stars.
I refuse to watch,
will shut my eyes as I hike,
will huff through my dark.

"Well, how was the play?"
"We left at intermission.
Thus the hangover."

Ignorant of men,
she thinks, "If only I were
love-worthy, or whole."

Legs crossed tight, I watch
two women discuss their jobs
and buying new dogs.
They talk about food,
losing weight, moving away,
husbands, growing old.
They sit close, phasing
through ways of sitting, watching,
but never touching.
I fidget, nervous,
pretending not to listen,
but obviously...

i dont even smoke

cigarettes i didnt smoke
coat my favorite clothes,
so when i get dressed,
want to look good, go out,
i think about your lips,
parted and poutin

but this aint fair, i dont even smoke

friends say do laundry,
freshen up, but that would mean loss,
memory is loss, too, but softer
and these days i try to smile more
so i decided to go out less
and not try so hard to look good
when i get dressed in the mornin,
but your lips and hands stay there

but this aint fair, i dont even smoke

nights i do go out i carouse
around red-dressed, dancin girls
and they smoke like you, kiss too,
but mornins after, crawlin out of bed,
i dont have their clouds around me,
just your old nail polish and lipstick

but this aint fair, i dont even smoke

Scrolling through my phone
I realize I only keep
the unctuous texts

Ashley Billasano

We still had town squares,
gathered there in November,
a new mess declared.

The elders concurred,
we huddled, should have done more,
let her face sting us.

Established rapport
ignored our stiff injustice,
lost, we found our guilt.

We exchanged pictures
of the girl smiling, self-killed,
buried immature.

Once the tears had dried, we left,
her notes scattered, deaf, ink-wet.

Sugar-Ants

Armed with the plastic
shovel from my son's bedroom,
I scoop sugar-ants
out of the pantry,
away from the coffee can,
off of the counter.

Shovel full, I march
toward the bathroom to drown them
and pretend they're gone.

I drink uneasy
cups of morning coffee fuel,
refusing to watch
any lingering
soldiers swim down my gullet
and die inside me.

Catherine, a dancer,
hacks at dance floors with her feet,
bleeds in the shower.

caverns announce the guttural grinding of deep rock-shifts,
her chest wheezes with that earthen creaking

while her eyes wain, flutter through sleep and sense
locating you, losing you, desperate to steady themselves

still; you pray for crises, earthquakes, an excuse,
a chance to crumble and lay open-mouthed on the floor, empty.

your hands are shaved, amputee
spiders wrestling with themselves,
their nail-spindles scratching and growing through the fray.

your hands cast their webs
into the crooks of my neck,
onto my ears, and crawl across my chest;
nesting, sleeping, stretching their legs as they fall still.

Cameo

Locked inside oysters,
(I search for sterling framing)
you long for pearl skin.

You scratched my back, shocked
you could trace the raised trail-scars.
Your tilled stripes remain;
I call them tattoos,
name them after you like stars,
plant memories there.

You Imagine The South

Your professor prepares the class to watch footage of Dr. Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream speech. Your professor reads quotations from Plessy v. Ferguson. You are taught about the dismantling of Jim Crow laws. You remember seeing footage of the National Guard with rifles at Alabama schools. You imagine Jim Crow as a man. You imagine the National Guard lining up as a firing squad. You imagine the execution of Jim Crow. You imagine his grieving family as Racism and vowing vengeance on The South. You imagine The South retching in the throngs of that curse. You imagine Jim Crow smiling as he bled out knowing the terrible strength of his family. You imagine his rusting blood. You imagine his bullet wounds. You think of the military and state-bought bullets. You think of your soldier father. You remember his story of shooting a man in the leg. You remember the warnings and promises he made to the man in the foreign country. You remember thinking of a tank then. You remember tanks and their steel skin and earthquake tracks. You remember thinking of American flags tattooed on the tanks' turret and knowing they belonged to your nation's terribly strong family. You remember laughing and nodding at your father's story. You remember goodnight hugs afterward. You remember Dr, Martin Luther King Jr. as an accused plagiarist and philanderer. You watch the footage of Dr. King's speech with your legs crossed. You wonder about his family's tattoos as the speech ends.

You Think of Warplots

Your professor asks your class to think of paralles between Cold War containment policies and current events. Your professor, thinking of arms, relates a story about finding a gun. You hear him describe finding a loaded .357 magnum in his shrubs. You think of warplots. You imagine the yard angry and building an armory. You imagine the yard growing unmowed and regretting the loss of subtle cultivation. You think of mowing yards. You remember yourself mowing lawns for your father's friends. You remember him teaching you how. You remember him telling you to grab the rumbling handle of the lawnmower and walk in a straight line. You remember his large hands clinched on either side of yours. You remember how minor your hands seemed. You remember how thin your arms were then. You remember your father walking behind you and steering. You remember thinking of your father explaining why crowds booed the Russian wrestlers. You think back to Truman's doctorine on Communism. You remember the Marshall Plan. You remember Truman's metaphor of evil seeds and evil soil and infestation. You think of mowing as patriotism. You think of your father as a patriot.

You Notice The Hook

You read over an Academic Paper Format. You read down the outline. You notice the five part Introduction. You notice The Hook is the first part. You read, "-attention getter (Why should the reader care?)" You imagine a fish hook binding pages together instead of a paperclip or staple. You imagine invisible magician's fishing line. You imagine the line unreeled from inside a reader's eye and knotted into the eyelet of the hook. You imagine everything with words with hooks. You imagine strings dangling from eyes, knotting themselves around the reading hooks automatically when you want to know what something says. You imagine this is how reading works. You imagine a grocery store. You imagine the magazine rack. You imagine a meager greeting card selection. You imagine old women crying over touching sympathy cards. You imagine their tears welling and flowing down their eye-strings toward the hook. You imagine the hook rusting after enough tears. You imagine everyone knows the best cards all have rusted hooks. You remember how blood rusts. You imagine finding a perfect sympathy card and wanting other people to read the card but not being able to cry. You imagine cutting your finger on the hook when you can not bring yourself to cry. You realize how blood and tears often appear as a package. You hope your blood-rust hook works. You hope your finger's hook-cut is enough to turn shoppers into readers. You hope not-crying does not make them stop caring. You return to the Academic Paper Format. You read the last section of the outline. You notice the seven part Discussion. You read the last part. You read, "Provide a brief conclusion."

You Imagine Helen Keller

You sit in a small classroom. You notice a grey-skyed downpour out of the lone window. You notice the florescent fixture above you. You notice the bulb, blinking and staggering. You guess it will die before class does. You flip through the stapled pages of a speech on your desk. You read Helen Keller wrote the speech. You hear the professor describe how she delivered the speech to teamsters. You furl your brow. You stare at the pages. You imagine Helen Keller gesturing from a balcony down to an adoring crowd. You imagine Helen Keller as Evita. You can not imagine her speaking. You imagine her mouth sullen and shut as she reads. You imagine her throat rumbling through the words. You imagine feeling her throat rumble with your open palm. You imagine the vibrations as harmonica notes which raise in pitch as her gestures grow furious. You imagine her eyes. You imagine her brow dancing from behind dark glasses to the melody of her guttural harmonica song. You imagine her wearing a purple velvet Victorian dress. You imagine a high neck and white lace. You imagine her wearing a matching hat. You imagine her hands in grey leather gloves. You imagine yourself wearing coveralls in her audience. You imagine standing packed against men buzzing with the hope of her gesture-song. You imagine they smell like your father. You imagine they smell like sweat and smoked cigarettes. You imagine holding a wrench in your fist. You imagine lifting your wrenched fist when Helen Keller thrusts her arms into the sky as her rumbling harmonica screeches. You imagine the men around you naming their daughters or cars Helen. You imagine farmers peppered in with the teamsters. You imagine your grandfather. You imagine Fred in the back of the crowd leaning on his Buick. You imagine her song disintegrating his reservations. You imagine him convinced. You imagine him nodding to himself as he drives away. You imagine he heard enough. You imagine this is why your mother is named Helen. You recognize you are still staring at the stapled papers. You notice the fixture above you buzz and flash. You notice the bulb burn out.

You Are No Druid

As you sit cross-legged under the pear blossoms, do not count the seasons their ancestors have bloomed there. The druids built stone calculators to count the seasons; the pear blossoms bloomed away from their craggy math for centuries after. Do not offend the pear blossoms so early in your sitting. First, close your eyes. Lift your arms into the sunlight after you have escaped your sleeves. Warm your blood. Turn your hands toward your face. Kiss each of your fingertips. Press your blessed fingers into your still-closed eyes until the black-pink-orange-yellow swirl-burn seeps slowly to the back of your brain. Bend your head to the ground and kiss the cool dirt in thanks. Settle your arms. Open your eyes. Allow the sight of the pear blossoms, sturdy and seeded, to recover your gaze. If the breeze does not scold you, does not mockingly whiz past your ears, the pear blossoms are pleased with your offering. You may now whisper of winter to their roots and understand bare branches. You may think of numbers; leave them unspoken but draw their shapes in the warming dirt. The pear blossoms will read your pictures and know that you are earnest, that you are no druid.

The moon, aloof and looming.
The sea, stalking and innate.
The whole damn mess,
undulating in stanzas,
engraved,
romantic.

Your Mother

Your mother lost her virginity thinking of a song; had, at some point, loved more men than you had lived years; let your father kiss her neck before the night you were conceived; dreamed of men, stoic yet empathetic, as she showered.

Your mother imagined celebrity and writing songs; rode down back roads before dawn daring the dew for adventure; cried, discarded, weekend nights she wasn't asked out.

The boy, burning deck-wood
falling char-steamed into the sea,
recites Casabianca but stammers over
"Love" in each line.
The poor ship cinders into midnight,
the poem left ill-read,
the boy, a failure, adorable, left drowning.

The boy, bubbling burnt-air
seizing toward the surface after the ship,
enunciates "Love" with mouthfuls of seawater,
Casabianca finished only after the fire's smothered.
The poor poem, like a schoolhouse
sunk under the weight of fiasco,
never moved the swimming sailors, the doomed captain.

The shore cocoons itself in sea,
prone & cold, a comforter to snuggle
while dreaming of marriages or
watching early-October horror films.

The sea wears the shore off the shoulder:
a slinky silk number bordering on oriental.
The sea prances in mirrors dawning the shore
decked in curlers and parody-red lipstick.

You Sit In On A Lecture

You sit in on a lecture. You hear about The Great Accommodator. You hear about Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Compromise. You learn the importance of loyalty to rich white businessmen. You think how the help then were just a law away from being the slaves. You hear about black housekeepers crying at the funerals of their white employers who had been their white owners. You imagine chapped mocca hands clasped in prayer under proud, melon breasts under heirloom shawls. You think of funerals. You realize your fear of death but not your own. You remember your first stepmother. You remember her funeral. You remember her smoothed, pinked skin. You remember not touching her. You remember not wanting to touch her. You remember thinking of molting snakes and their moon-blue eyes. You remember thinking the shed skin meant a more-comfortable snake. You remember growth. You remember thinking of the first girl you loved too young during the service. You remember how she was older than you. You regret losing touch. You remember scripting conversations about understanding monogamy and loss. You remember not understanding why she suddenly seemed vital. You remember hyperventilating outside in the shade afterward. You think back to loyalty. You remember Booker T. Washington. You remember The Great Accommodator. You stand and leave the lecture from the back of the hall.

I carried
you, shivering & sweating,
inside the house to my bed,
buried you under my comforter.

You planted
your bare hands
into the powder snow that morning,
stinging them, red & raw.

wicker rocking horse
scattering shadows across
fluffy beige carpet

rewritten love notes never referencing the editor, or revisions, or the author shambling through uneasy stomachs, or red ink, or slashing his way toward just what he means, or his not knowing what he means, or the crawling cowardice of not speaking to her but building folded-paper forts held together with colored ink, or the budding calluses where when his scrawling becomes feverish his fingers squeeze the pen, or the pushing of his knuckle toward the ink so his pen draws honestly, or the crying over too-honest editions he later crumbles and tares into strips before dropping them into the trash so no one can read them, or the eventual submitting because he was done with the relationship, or the rejecting of the narrative he could charm her back with notes, or that she could be charmed back, or that she would want to come back, or that he would want her back

Baggage

Unpacking the house,
mountains of still-taped boxes
suffocate closets
like old suitcases
forgotten at train stations,
displaced and hidden.

Replacing hidden
furniture inside the house,
I clean the station
grown stiff with boxes,
the musk of wet suitcases
seeps from the closets.

Shriving the closets,
disclosing what was hidden,
open suitcases
flood halls in the house
like trash tossed into boxes
while flushing stations.

Platform train stations
rattle like empty closets
after stark boxes
cease to be hidden,
scattered across the whole house
near lost suitcases.

Bemoaned suitcases
linger behind at stations;
repairing the house,
I restock closets.
Though no longer called hidden,
I restack boxes.

Marking the boxes—
porters name all suitcases:
worn tags fade, hidden
inside the stations’
lurking backrooms and closets—
I forsake the house.

Boxes in the house,
like suitcases in closets,
hidden in stations.

Instant Animal Goes to School Poem

I came across a raccoon, wet and whimpering,
on the way to school.
His tail was very pleaded with blood-rusted spindles and dead fur,
and his eyes were very closed.
I hid him in my shirt, against my chest, over my heart
(so the rhythm might warm him)
so that teacher would not see.
He stayed there very quietly
until frightened by a sigh.

Instant Louder Than You Can Imagine Poem

Louder than a slip wrinkling under her dress,
louder than a held hand,
louder than a lip bleeding
or a knuckle swelling,
louder than a pair of heels hitting the floor
or a dinning room chair falling onto the linoleum,
louder than a quarter spinning.
Louder than a dimpled tie,
louder than a car door locking,
louder than a tissue tearing
as she feverishly dabs her cheeks,
louder than an eclipse,
louder than an empty shot glass,
louder than a closed book,
that's how loud my sister SNORES!

Instant Hello Spring Poem

Good-bye, father's socks.
Good-bye, spoiled milk.
Good-bye, winter.
Spring's ahead!

Good-bye, chapped teeth.
Good-bye, sweat-bruises.
Good-bye, winter.
Spring, hello!

Hello, cardinals' sweet fucking.
Hello, resurrected savior.
Good-bye, winter.
Spring's in sight!

Hello, mosquito nets.
Hello, salmonella.
Good-bye, winter!
Hello, spring!

Instant Birthday Poem

I’m getting another year older
And I’m getting another year older,
And I’m getting another year older,
And I’m getting to learn harmonica moans,
And I’m getting to dance in boxed stutter-steps,
And I’m getting to think that leaving with a smile
Could be hard.

Instant This is the Poem That... Poem

This is the poem that waits
in the laundry room,

that inspects ant lines
because it's hiding

because the other poems scolded it.
And when guilt

tumbles loads of regrets into towers of steam,
this is the poem that laughs

behind the dryer
blowing ants off course.

September Septet

afterwards
we found cut-off shorts
near the shore-rocks where we slept
but we wore trunks out swimming that night
and those girls had been missing
for almost a week
at that point

The broken coffee mug
(darting, jutting, crumbling, cragging...)
holds dried dogwood petals,
held your keys,
slices at my fingers.

Instant I Asked Poem

I asked.

I asked the radar why it was amaranth
and it washed and wavered over targets.

I asked the thrush why it was mottled
and it pecked at my swollen mouth.

I asked the hand of my lover why it curled under my weight
and it curled under my weight.

I asked the crash to sing
and it reminded me of steel.

I asked the iron to grow
and it did and the steel became jealous, bickering with the radar.

I asked the thrush why they fought
and they overheard.

I asked myself if I had ruined the party
and the noose of my apologies to lost lovers grew
as taut and tight as the room I leave for them to
resent me.

The night yielded.

The sleep arrived
and I kept quiet
and everything was perfect.

Grandmother

Grandmother—
disarmed, disquieted—
mulling, shuffling, recanting
her coveted, hidden cookbooks.
Irene.

my dearest Egypt:
I may plague you no longer,
my parted seas dry

September 22, 2011

I wrote more haiku
today than I did poems
the whole of last year

wedding receptions,
my parents' waking divorce,
teens, last night engaged

sipping spinal dew
from the mouths of gendered gods;
ain't I a woman?

dying campfires;
Texas brush-burns conquest through
the char-grown plains

cigarette burns race
against my languid fingers
the morning after

dry bed, tear-salt trails
evaporate from your face,
the dunes wait for rain

I apply the myth
of our relationship to
the pits in my throat

dance-sex auditions,
minimum drink casting couch,
no leading ladies

night air thick with breath,
we sweat, pressed inside white pews
absorbing scripture

Nature as a book
we assigned chapters and named
logic or reason

you wear the madras
pattern of my kisses on
your chest like armor

your calloused hands, twin
cities where the trains still run
on time, lack mercy

tangled in christmas
lights
and plaids

bemoaning David Bowie’s
eventual death
while

well-reviewed lo-fi
sizzles from your Boise
speakers

I Like Collegians

I like collegians.
They are so unlike adults.
They smoke cheap cigarettes.
They snort cocaine in bathrooms at house parties.
They study weekdays.
They go to class unbathed in pajamas.
They support the causes in Africa.
The children and wars and all of the causes in Africa.
They jog around the quad in pairs.
Most of their families are wealthy.
The poor students get better grades.
They sneak whiskey into football games
And write about class and sportsmanship in the student paper.
They forget the names of people they slept with.
They use protection mostly.
They go to the beach in the Spring
And home for Christmas.
They pledge fraternities and sororities
But have never, by any means, been hazed.
They curse loudly at videogames in their dorm rooms.
They wear tweed blazers ironically.
They order pizza and refuse to tip the driver
They buy pot from him instead.
They ignore the solicitous emails from professors
The same emails the administration ignores.
They trade laughs with their roommates.
They do not report rapes.
They write papers in coffee shops.
They play Frisbee shirtless in the sun.
They post pictures from Thursday bar nights online
And tag their friends.
They graduate and eventually run the country.

As you would embrace the moon
in stanzas swooning over craters,
I would brace it, construct props,
spackle over craggy ridges,
repair the patina.

You would decry my alterations
as villainous, ruinous, wasteful.
You would long for dust and cracks.
I would ruminate on my efforts,
call the moon a pearl,
ease into a proud drunk.

Fishgut Ambrose stylized-environments
fascinating game lore hired under heist-fists
bright splits, fruit trees, underscored potentials
leg-full spider nests demanded over cargo