CALAMITY

i have a recurring nightmare:

            bodies sheathed in fog

            slap against my slick car

 

i study strangers’ faces

            hopeful they will occupy

            the watery figures of my dreams

 

i have many qualities of an absolute ruler, but above all:

            glut

 

i once knew a parrot that lived in a funeral home

            it perched by the phone and said brrring! brrring! kenosha funeral home

            it perched by the phone and said shut the fuck up i’m trying to sleep

 

i wish i was the color of patina

 

i think red suns are a bad omen

            i’ve only seen one: the radio said it was because a forest

            burned in canada: but the gunfire came peppery and bright

 

i look at landscapes and cathedrals

            for a long time

            deciding which

            is which

 

i imagine the deaths of those i love

            occurring in at least five different ways

 

i was twenty-three and eating an apple

            when i realized i was naked

 

i prefer being the artist over the work of art

            but i admit to having second thoughts

 

i have another recurring nightmare:

            a boy holds out an open hand

            worms waver in the fleshy dirt

            of his palm like a second set of

            fingers

 

i have known at least three

            misguided saints

            who did not deliver

            me safely to my bed

 

i see a street light

            but hear slow gin fizz

 

i firmly believe i was dangerous

            once

 

i find the world never knowing a day

            without grief

            a comfort

 

i put more stock in bone-house

            than body

 

i heard once that error in latin means

            wandering about

            so i erred and erred and erred

 

i never asked for forgiveness

            for kissing a stranger goodbye

            because it didn’t feel like a goodbye kiss

 

i make a habit of jumping off cheekbones

            that remind me of cliffs

 

i think the sentence if you stay i’ll have sex with you

            is about as neat as a spoon

            in a garbage disposal

            but i have heard it before

            and i have stayed

 

i watched a woman ice a cake on a subway for eleven minutes

 

i never figured out what is worth lying about