I'm watching TV in the window of a furniture store

cliche
Framed in the window
arms with blanket draped from wrist to wrist

beauty was a cliche
of any word in that room

poetry is not the language we use
to describe such things

I have forgotten that language

but still, they tell me
I mouth the words in my sleep

I won't stop all the mighty eyed pretending

Fourth Position

You raised your arms
bent your knees deeply
in a plie
one of the many words you taught me
what a gift,
to give someone names
for all of the movements
of the body








I wanna die

My tea bag
leaks wispy threads
into the water
soon the entire cup is dark
I look out my window
night comes so quick these days
I admit that I am waiting for nothing
the shadows stretch
as though they could ever break away
from their cars
fire hydrants
the drug dealer on the corner
like a gargoyle
I wonder if he knows he is waiting for nothing
the shadows learn
to take each other's shapes
a pair of shoes tied to the power line
creeps up the street
toward me
dancing halfheartedly in the breeze













I don't want to set the world on fire

when the apocalypse comes
and I am brought to ashes
and then to fumes
when everything I am composed of
is passed to the wind

my ventricles will harden
the chambers of my heart will expand
and hallow
I will leave behind a small, black
instrument of a thing

When those lonely creaking breezes
start to wind through empty bottles
and fidget with the piles of ash
I will leave a home
for the sky to whisper through