dune

he called it one of the best novels ever, so naturally I have never read it and now, twenty years down the line, I still haven't; we haven't exchanged a word in nineteen.

I bought him some other pulp for his thirteenth birthday and we left it at that.

slippery

just 30 after midnight, a stray bullet came through the window and left the woman dead in a pool of blood and broken glass for her son to find.

this was my neighborhood, this could've been my window. it could've been my mother or someone else's aunt. people left flowers behind the fence, beneath her window, and they are all mostly dried up and withered now, only the plastic the same.

I walk by, think how her window was only steps from mine, and how any night, if I walk by my window to get a glass of water, that might be me.

disgusting

my knee is old in a way that makes me wish I could pop it open with a flathead screwdriver, clean the gunk, oil the joint, pop the cap back on, good as new except for that light discoloration, old bone beige

hope

she od'd. i didn't know her well.

sometimes when you pass, people turn you into symbolism if your story is interesting enough,

like a pr campaign for the dead, as if all the people who knew you were making up for all the things you would never get to do.

throw

up,

it all away,

the ball,

yourself at him, into the job, into your work.

teeth

you don't want a dry socket, so you drink water like the dentist prescribes, brush your teeth funny,

take the pain killers, watch tv, sleep,

go to school, gargle gently and don't spit too hard.

the hole heals, but from time to time, you dream about little cavities in your gums, right where the teeth used to be.

fancy

bow on your french chocolates,

breakfast radishes and milk buns from the farmers market,

japanese stone washed linen duvets,

a vacation to pristine americana where you can trek steep rocky ground for leisure,

drink store bought spring water from your 3 liter plastic pouches,

take pictures of places where people in your life could not afford to be.

rodent

drove 3x in d a u,

5 cups of coffee,

stayed up all night,

blah blah blah was very impressed with you,

on track for xyz,

if not too much trouble,

need this for an investor,

five stars,

really appreciate it.

blade

two cuts with his dull little knife because that's what edgy teenagers do,

so hardcore, a little scratch or two, something right out of tv but real like

cheap blunted swords that you could by from your local tourist market for thirty or less

so you could shine a bit of steel while you kicked all the drunk party guests out at 3am or so on new year's day in 2011

and sleep, and sleep, and sleep

and when an ex-chef wants you to touch his japanese sharpening block in his little knife shop when you are old and touring non-cities

you do it, because they mined it from deep under the ocean, but mostly because your ex lover thinks knives are cool and you are humoring him and the shopkeep.

radio

when we drive, we always start with the first channel,

scroll to the next,

and down,

until we've fallen into some obscure plane of dada notes,

cool jazz or lukewarm oldies as we try on warbly country on dirt roads, and motown even though we live too comfortably and carefully to really know what the man is singing about,

so I ask for permission to switch the radio off, and you assent.

radio off, I plug in my little glass and plastic phone, find an aria where the queen of the night demands murder. 

the soprano is a wisp. I find someone else, 

a less pretty chanteuse with heavy coloratura, 

start a tall road story, about sopranos who sing offkey, and other sopranos who relish it.

we would've never been friends in high school.

bulky

apples, a bag,

fuji, gala, a blondee, crispin gold. a new name for each rose.

a pink darling blossomed, high up on the tree,

and myself, too short to reach, so i plucked dying leaves,

and sent you autumn, instead of letters i wouldn't mean.

wisp

wisp

ink, hair, a child for you,

a house, a husband.

in the mirror, my locks have grown too long;

we are nearly twins again,

if you were the sky, and myself, the ocean at night.