Clean Room

I want to become a criminal
because there is nothing to read
and my body is unbalanced

a single violin, only a single violin in a big white clean textured room
I would smash that filth into noxious gas and never hear that sick sound again

because there is nothing else

---

The Toaster

every flower that we made is rife with explosion
and we see that upon my hand is a raised fist
and upon that is a russian flower that wilted in a pupil stage and recognized the absurdity of being a flower in a world with candles and torches and lamps and steam engines where they toss in the fried remains of entire ecosystems and smoke them, I want microfiche of my autopsy and I want it alive in my sinking roach eyes

She would pick up all of her high school clothes and throw them away and clog up every septic tank this truly was an endless summer of signs being cut out of the sky and art being made out of a poor excuse for death
a running broken nose

go away from here again and wait for the lights to burn out.

---

Little Weasel

that was my compass erring on the
side of rocks ripping up the real side
of things
the truth is a big cut on the side of my
thumb that I made when turning four
cardboard boxes into a coffin
with raffle tickets to the show going
are we going to the show? are we
going to see him living there staring
at a wall for an hour
thinking our something to do was
measly?
if I ever lay an egg let it be bright red
and bigger than my hands
heaving bread on top of readers
from my three story tower

---

A Slow Step Back

so I finish up a set
and can’t remember how many circles
I’ve drawn around these trees
next fall I will wind my body
like a twine spool
and let the wind knock
cells from my bone
I will stay out watching
all the dogs running
until their masters sweat
because we’ll believe the dog Knows

---

Farmer’s Tale

and what if we had seeded the ground with garganfly
to prove the references false again
but just before a rain fell we capsized the barn
with a salt brush and a dozen hairs
lazily wafted away
to warn other families of these dangerous heads
burning cattle past the river

and instead infected them
with a patterned thought
we didn’t take your hard-earned
we didn’t bother, cut down the branches
and make the trees into thorns
and make the doves into chickens
down by the nightclub
in the neon by the grinding mill
make the whole town puce