400th Day

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No birth stone in the carport this morning
the weather seal crows like a hen

I think a swing could hang from the beam
beside the hornets. I’ll foam them



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A horseman carrying a stick delivers the mail
not yet dawn, the red flag lowers

this would be a good time to pray
but the coolant’s low, there’s a grinding

a grey mist follows me like dust
settling on my heart

there’s really no horse, it’s just
that everyone is still asleep and that would be cool




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You might notice my retreads
Some day already remembering
Armadillo, step aside, Monday

Frost on your pant fronts
By Friday I will be shoeless in snow
You will say I am spared

The armadillo is dead in the culvert
Famous and spare
Like the eyes of the witness

White and empty as a cell




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I sit in my car, abrasive heat
sweat in my undershirt
the air is a pool
air conditioning all day

I wash suffering
with my eyes closed
until it says stop

at night I hear owls
in glacial darkness
tomorrow I will get up
to feel the weight.



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With any luck everyone has been fired from their jobs.
If we are together, brothers, we can make a new emptiness
from the bottom. As a child I hid in the attic
reading your comic books. If you’d known
You might have beat me. Sometimes birds cry at daybreak
for the going dark, coming light.
The sun is a gross hook in the trees. My superhero
is tired and wants to go home, tired of looking
out and not finding anyone. He destroys himself to shadow.


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Sleeping While Driving


I hold on to the steering wheel
to keep from falling through the isthmus
of myself. Amusing like bodies
or African sand. Lightening makes glass
which is not water, does not want
softness. Imagine dancing in glass
slippers until your feet are bloody.
Blood red universe, I wake to the road.






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