PEOPLE OFTEN CHANGE THEIR RINGTONES AFTER RELATIONSHIPS END 

Not that it was anything. Just an offset. A day where the sun set for the east for a year. Wisdom teeth, nose piercings, appendixes, things to be removed. Just a detour in Jackson Heights, a detour in greater Queens. a detour down an empty street.  

a vacation I took before I was thirty. The sculptor spanking my thighs, the custodian stealing pennies out of Washington Fountain. Your mother’s face when the train approached. Just Prometheus returning the fire. All those old timey games like hitting wheels with that big stick.  

Just your breath held silently, then staggered. 

Forget the mixtape. Only Marimba brings me back to you. 

Simple Poem 

He was slow in school and couldn't take himself seriously.  

The green of the chalkboard is not of the one in grass. 
 I am telling you this  
in secret. They give the advanced math students the faster ipads.  
The green in the chalkboard is not the one in the terf. Look at  
him as the goalie. The only thing he could stand to use  

was his body.He carried 1000 pounds of cakes in a day. Green was money. They  

told me that he hated putting 
        these things  
into words. Things he could never say.  

The feathers of the locust leaves, what color  
was her name. 

Next Time 

What you want so much will not come  
this month, but maybe the next.  

Your friend cradles her cat in her arms  
and it reminds you of something in your mind  
They stick machines in you,  
you go to a church  
  to have it released.  
  But it’s in you,  
  and not in you too, wherein the problem lies.  
It’s absence that has to go.  
no margin can be unfilled.  
All of you has to concave into the exit wound  
for what has half lived in your mind since girlhood.  

To prove to yourself that it will here,  
that it will be beside you, touchable.  
That thought, that wish, 
that plan: your girl.