Javier was a Naugahyde.
Lily was a silk.
Montel was a thistledown.
Billy skinned an elk.

Pedro made a custom knit.
Tessa was a throw.
Sarah walked the other way.
And you: you never go.

Macie was a terraplane.
Horace was a jet.
Marcy was a submarine.
Jim was getting wet.

Stuart raced a hovercraft.
Tim was on the ground.
And tell me, in that hot balloon,
You ever coming down?

Sylvia was a nuthatch.
Mickey was a jay.
Lonnie was a mockingbird.
Cole had flown away.

Henry bit a swallow's beak.
Tom was in his nest.
Henry lost the chance to hatch.
Where did you stash the rest?

The heart. The heart is a hole
in the body when the body dies.

The heart is a heart. The heart is not
full of stickers. Neither butterthorns.

The heart is full of blood. The blood is it.
That's what it does. It does the blood.

It's a heart. It's *the* heart. The heart.
The heart. The heart. The heart.

The heart. The heart.

DEATH FOR THE POOR
after Baudelaire


        death is the soothe and the
        drive of it) ends with the hope that can
                ride us and blunt us and give us the
                        heart to trudge on through the night and the

                        storm and the slush and the weediness.
                floodlights that buzz in the lot of our
        dimming motel with the all-you-can-
        eat and a bible. they turn down your

                bed and this angel will make you feel
        drowsy. she gives you wet dreams then she
                washes the sheets. in the name of the-

        odicy goddesses: wages of
                sin and the mortgages paid by the
        lives of the poor (and the doorways

                are hinging for more

(from the archives, circa 2002)

My slit is heathen sailing on
        the list of blasted roots, state
                of horror turning in the merchant of
                        my throat, thorax acid sizzle
                                through the rings, drip down sweat and

                                sing out motor for the puzzle metal
                        huddle to the pedal of his threat up
                braided nettles in the heat of seeking
        salmon crushing current with the jelly
fibers, diver with the hive ripped out

                              (from the archives, circa 2003)