their loved ones. Shitty bitchy words just tumble on
out of their mouths. Their parents did the same to
them. To make them hardy. Made them hard.
The lady on the news says there’s a phone application
that helps you remember to think of your kids. Download
it now.
The lady on the news says there’s a teacher who won
an award. This teacher is at your daughter’s school.
She seeks to undo all the lessons you teach her.
I Had a Job I Hated
A Man Needs a Woman
A man needs a woman even if he’s strong.
A woman to help and support and admire him.
A man needs a woman to be there beside him.
Even when he’s much more
powerful than you.
Sometimes a man needs a shoulder to
whine on.
Sometimes he might need a
wife on the side.
Sometimes a man just needs
someone to blame
or a thing to think thoughts of when
he’s feeling small.
A potential container for all his
small thoughts and feelings and
bodily fluids.
He’ll let you know and you’ll be there to
do it.
And if you can
type fast
then that’s even better.
They told me that when
I applied for the job.
I needed the money so I said
okay.
I Ruined My Work Shirt with Jack in the Box Taco Sauce
How are we living if
our nutrients corrode us.
How are we living when
one dot of brown
makes a difference in how
we’re perceived.
Strongly Felt Sensations of This Morning
The parking garage is a video game. It takes skill to apply just the right press of pressure to the gas and the brake. To swirl up and up, reflexively avoiding the beat-down pedestrians, the unseeing SUVs failing to yield. The big Robot Bass throbbing hard in your ears as you kick this game’s ass and collect your high score. Wait, there isn’t one. Oh, well.
Outside it’s beautiful and green. If you don’t like warm Marches—warm Februaries, Januaries, then get out of Houston. Don’t complain anymore. While you’re whining your mantra, “I miss snow! I miss seasons! I miss Kansas, too, Toto!” I’m silently thanking my gods for the warmth. Thank you, Sun. Thank you, Spring. Thank you, God. Thanks, Equator. Thank you, Sweet Plastic Jesus with paint-chipping smile, under the Christmas trees, here where it’s warm in December.
But I get beat down as I walk inside, to the cold, beige womb of a money-grubbing mother. The deeper I go, the more the walls filter the sunlight to dusk. To spore-ridden nothing, asbestos-y substances burning my lenses. Bleaching and leeching the everything out of my face.
Will lipstick help? No. Will a coffee break help? No. Will Monster.com help? No, not so far.
A gift comes: the privilege to carry some paper far, far down the hall to the world of my betters. And then! I linger in their doorways. I’m using their windows to look at the Sky. I joke with myself in my mind about running and crashing right through them, no, not to fall all the way down to my death or to rescue.
Oh, no. But to shake off the glass shards and then fly away. A medium-sized Black Bird flies over the grass and the fountains. To the vine-y-webbed bayou that’s right there for both of us—for him and for me—to be wild in. It’s holding the trees that will hold me so tight when I sing. Oh, wait for me, please. I’ll be free for you later, at 4:45.
No matter what happens inside the beige walls, it can’t make me stop loving Spring. And I strongly suspect that Spring loves me right back. So there, take that, Beast of Money, Cold Hell.
The Elevator’s Tight Squeeze
The smell of hate or tied-up
something burns the dregs
and smolders. Hard-forced
Air vibes push from
you to me. Your
chemistry is broken,
Sir. Your tie/shirt/money clip/
pedigree do not
obscure your scent.
Like a Baby Doll
Blank-faced I sit in this
window. Pretend not to see
the men spraying and sweating
outside, that they’re looking
at me.
Or else I’ll watch over their
work like a mami, will
pantomime questions or fear
for their safety. The rough ropes
look brittle, the rusty hooks
liable to break.
But most days I pretend not to see
them while they pretend that they
don’t ever see me. (At least until
they peek.) (I see them when
I peek.)
I pose, poised, bored tease in
a building that gleams.
The Homeowner
Drive back and forth
a rush-hour tide
I strive to regain that feeling I felt
when I thought that this was worth it.
The drive is gray.
I cry. I think of everything we’ve gained. Paint chips and
blonde and white children and clippings
and trash days and swimming pools and
girls on the Pill, fresh-faced and vacant
not girls on the corners with babies
in wombs in their swollen tight jeans.
No, that stuff’s far away now. We live
in a paradise of our own making.
We’re making a living and paying our
our bootstraps and living the good life
now, living the fucking American
Dream. So why am I crying. It’s
just that the drive is so gray and
the faces insipid. The tide is receding
but never can rest and I’m driving for
ever. I’m driving toward something
I sure can’t complain about, something my
parents could never have had so it makes them so happy
to see me like this now, driving
and driving and wipe away tears now. I’m
laughing because it’s so dumb. The whole
thing’s so laughable, isn’t it?
I put on some music.
It helps.
In the Parking Garage
This morning, I wanted to interrupt her
fierce concrete stomp.
Look into her auto-pilot eyes and say,
“Did you know you’re the prettiest?
the prettiest girl in the building?”
As if my approbation is a prize
better than catcallers
down on the street.
I wish she was only a flower or a
shell on the beach.
I’d look silently. Still now, I do.
If ugly words stopped flowers’ blooming, would
you say all your best words to bloom them again?
And does that make you selfish?
If flowers could hear, would they need us
to point out their power?
A Bad Feeling
Something almost as bad as loneliness is boredom. Especially boredom you can’t escape.
The walls are beige, the carpet’s dark beige, all the metal and fake wood are beige and brown. The prints on the walls are beige. And brown. And taupe. And gray. And gray-ish, brownish purple.
This, after the expensive repainting and re-carpeting and general renovation. This was what they came up with.
I know my job but no one cares. It really doesn’t even matter if I do it well or not. Or if I do it quickly or not. Or if I do it cheerfully, or distractedly, or hatefully, or with any feeling whatsoever, or not.
There’s not
hing else to do. Nowhere to escape to except into more nothing-colors and nothing-ness. Go drink some coffee if you want. It’ll only keep your eyes open bigger when there’s nothing to see. Go joke in the hallway with people who feel the same but can’t admit it. You’re caught under water with them all, and nobody’s going to yell for help.
Count the minutes—count the fucking milliseconds—until you go home. When you get home, you’re too tired to do a goddamned thing.
Your dreams are all colored. All drama, all violence, all sexy, fast fast fast and so very interesting, all night long.
Eula in the Bathroom Stall
I’ve got to go
and so I make my way
into the stall
but find I’m not alone.
I hear a groan
and know she’s there.
It’s Eula there
who makes that groan
and oh, I wish I were alone
inside my stall
because she’s way
into her story, started long ago.
Her monologue goes
on, no matter who is sitting there.
She tells the way
her breasts have grown
so swollen, or her ovaries have stalled.
She says her family’s left her all alone.
And if she were alone
she’d still be talking, just the same. She’d go
on for hours, no shame at all.
And yet I’m pinned there
by her words. I groan.
I cannot get away.
I want to get away
because I need to be alone.
I’ve grown
aloof in my old age. I go
insane when Eula’s there.
She has no shame at all.
I’m an animal
in Africa. I feel the way
they do, so vulnerable, crouched there
silently listening for all the lions who’d love to suck
my bones
’til Eula goes
and makes a scene with jumping, shrieking, plumage,
groans.
So we have grown
like animals, we hide in stalls and silently go
insane with vulnerability. Ashamed, afraid, we
crouch there all alone.
Unless loud Eula awaits us,
inside her bathroom stall.
9-to-5, After Noon
Under glassed-out hot sun
you’re boil-in-a-bag
or sinking your head to
plywood stone.
Nothing here is handsome
and you’re crowded but alone.
No one here can hear it
the pressurized bore-hate
that holds us taut.
And you’re caught up high
in the catbird seat.
Or your stick in that window.
Looked at, boiling hot,
alone.
His Son Is His Everything
His son’s always hungry and he lives through
his son’s appetites. A flint’s struck in
his eyes as he tells me, inserts into
my head the images that must rock
his body to sleep. A deer’s head
nailed to the wall, glassy-eyed, sniffs at
the filmy pink panties adorning its
horn, its antler, I mean. “A trophy
on a trophy!” he tells me his son said.
He says with a head shake, pretending
chagrin. He describes the pink-panty
girl who beat on his front door and
cried, and he tries not to snigger.
Next comes a vision of anonymous
Muslims sweating and running in fear
at the sight of the particular insignia
emblazoned upon his son’s breast.
He sweats, himself, maybe, telling the
vision of brown men beat up in the
hot bloody desert.
So proud.
I feel a bit dizzy at my desk now.
There’s too many bodily fluids
especially testosterone and bile.
I see his stories, his smile, and smell
the fear. My own. I’m afraid of his
son. Of his laughter. Of the fact that
my whole life depends
on satisfying this man’s needs. I’m
afraid for my spawn to get mixed
up with his spawn because my
own son is my everything. He’s the
only reason I’m here now this
afternoon listening to this man piss
into my brain.
His son is his everything. His son is
the sum of his rutting and antler
butting. His son is his reason for standing
here, telling me what to do.
Falling in Love with Fellow Prisoners
Words for Nerds
The sexiest men
are the sexless men.
I want to wake them up.
The inward face
that holds itself blank
is begging to suffer in love.
If you’re secretly a warlock
don’t feel guilty, it’s just fine.
If you’re secretly a monster
then I think you should be mine.
Unrequited
I like it when I’m loved, she says
but can’t love in return.
That feature got burnt out
she said, but go ahead, I’ll
let you love me, first.
Okay, he said. Of course.
Zombie Maker
He knows you’re the kind of girl
to throw his love away.
But he still loves you so, and he
says it all on his guitar and he’s
on stage so sad, and all of the
other girls listen and
sway.
But you look away and laugh.
And I look at you and say,
come to me now, oh come to me,
you wicked girl. You
vicious thing.
Blondes, More Fun
Gold girl run
on through my head
One day I’ll be
your winner.
You may never see
it’s me here
striving struggling
hoping
You may never see
it’s me
fighting monsters
for you.
Or you may see and
still not care.
You’re just a pretty face.
There’s nothing behind
your face when I
see it in my head.
Be Witch
What are you doing? I
like to picture you in
five shiny leaves that
make a flower on your ear,
frolicking in the woods,
a messenger bag full of
fairy dust or a
cobbler on the stove,
a quieting baby on the
hip and pine trees in the
window. A black cat on
the window sill and
either way, your spells
are all unbroken. Your
magic’s all in working
order, potions in the
cupboard. Bubbling’s
on the fire. A twinkle
in my breast imagines that
you might be happy.
The Flower for December Is Narcissus
The weather outside was frightening and I wore out
my welcome when I
locked you inside and made you hold up
constant mirrors of me.
Don’t act cold. I need your face to
face my fire and warm me. Or go ahead and say
goodbye. I’ll find myself another man to thaw.
Fishing
The dysfunctional conversation
over, he says: Let me let
you off the hook
now. Let me cut you loose.
He laughs.
Isn’t that funny, he
gives her permission to
go?
She thinks it’s funny to
imagine herself as a fish
that he catches each day.
A wish that she grants him. He
whispers: Be mean to me,
please.
She does, it’s granted. She says:
you’re welcome and please don’t
go fishing tomorrow.
Not the same hooked wish, the
snare kiss that’s tangled in
nets and wet spangles and bitter
like brine
that draws her, catches her
again and again, when
all she wants is to see the
sun glint and feel
the swim motion forward.
Freckles
Freckles on my fingertips
like fairy dust
or when you touch
a butterfly
except it dies
and you’re alive
and you exist
and here you are.
I touch your skin.
Your freckles won’t
come off but I
enjoy the thought of
making you
more naked than
you are right now
with me.
This may be your favorite song, but
you’re mad because I sang the words wrong.
Don’t you see?
The man said hiding place, his voice so brusk
and fakely British.
I heard honey glaze, my voice so free and
plain and confident
A honey glaze was the lyric needed in the
song that played while we rode that street.
We ride in a sugar maze. The man who’s singing
doesn’t know that you plus me is sweet amaze.
How could he have known while recording what
he thought he had to say? That we would be
inside a personal honey glaze today?
His love was like a hiding place, it’s
not my fault that he was sad
and couldn’t understand.