Case VIII

Mlle X, a fifteen-year-old girl, spent several months, during the winter of 1883, undergoing hydrotherapy at Longchamps

Exchanging one anya-nyelv, mother-tongue, for another is like 
nibbling salted peanuts at the sticky bar top,
unplanned but eventual for a bilingual migrant. 

The other mother-
nyelv tongue is

Because of its hardiness and tendency to escape cultivation, these non-native wisterias are considered invasive species in many parts of the United States, especially the Southeast, due to their

When my mother built me
again, she did not wait for sobs

to pass. She left clasps undone
then wept in her bedroom.

I tried to reach for the gown
but my fingers mumbled back hair

into metal

What's It Like?

           We have made unspeakable mean indescribable:
           it really means nasty.
                                   -Paul Fussell

You don’t mean nasty. You mean

the man who touches you also touches
the other women of the city, this special
man who you chose to be your first man
even after you’ve met so many men who
wanted to know you as a woman

I will shake your hand now. Later maybe we will have drinks. 

every movie ever has big hard cocks. ass. tits. sorry, I meant porn. sometimes when I travel I listen to the radio. the songs make me think of you and I think of the shapes your mouth makes and I

One Night We Drove Through Yellowstone

I dreamt of a white bear last night,

like the ones in the rainforests

of Alaska. Landlocked, we dreamt

of whispering to them, shaking off

one

MINIMUS OPUS

1997
I was hiding behind a chair
Cutting off all my hair
My father asked me
If I was a retard
I replied honestly
I didn’t know
Childhood is
A population of no’s
In a field of

the child inside of me
has become comfortable
with the heat of the months
as they melt down
like hot wax then build one
on top of the other
into a mountain
in silence

has started to

King of the Road

naked as death
begging on the highway

I calibrate the instrument
of my breastplate to lead me
back to you

I never once saw a dog chase a bone
but I never knew a dog that

I often confuse the dead horses
for trees. I say things like termites

care about the weather, or dark stars
will always find their way to empty

rooms. Anyway, the dead horses are real,        

Carrot Flowers

We are toward somewhere in the first sentence. There is June & us or us or June because that’s what’s left of it. I walk like a walk with a walk on the table. The walk is finding

Neck Tattoo

Your neck tattoo spoke to me but I needed a
translator. Needed a nail gun, a barn wall to
respond to  your forward  advances.  After a
night together,  I woke to find  that your

real / unreal

last night i had a dream         
            that my teeth fell
out all in a row.
                       i woke with them still
                                                 

Vapor of Breath

All hail Michigan Dogman. All
slobber and standing seven feet
tall, Michigan Dogman sounds

howls like he’s missing a muffler
yet we’re never quite sure if it was
him or the

the babies are most dangerous because
            they have not learned how to control their venom
                        the way we make the same decisions over and over and over

i am your man

tall stranger man
you have sung a lot of songs 
you fall in love often
and maybe
you lose some things along the way
but everything is all right
and none of this matters

I have torn up the boy whose baseball
You are signing again.
He was beautiful,
As you are, Brooks Robinson,
As you lean your name back, a lefty’s autograph,
Your glove hand, the one that

It's their first practice in good spring weather,
not only not raining, not cold, but full of light.

good game
good game
good game

Blessed be the millwrights on the open hearth that awaited him; the nurses and elevator operators; secretaries; plumbers; electricians

The solitude. In the summer, I dine. On hot dogs. And fast balls. Go Dodgers!

I joined the crowd and bought an XL.