I was so mad
I forgot to be all my sad

survival gremlins work fast
packed most of it up
behind my back
stowed it in the attic

in a dust-draped corner
next to a heap of tangled wires
and a vintage Smith Corona

and now I see
your name permanent, on repeat
a cardboard Sharpie-scrawled
nonlinear timeline
stacked precarious

I keep questioning
why I'm up here
when I crack boxes
they siphon me in
to a grip of whys and ifs
that pin me horizontal

I think I like it
when they topple

pointy perpendicular assault
trying to impale inside
and paper cut

so pulpy marrow
can pry its way back
into my hollow bones

at some point
I just have
to laugh

or else cry

and I've already
drowned
my eyes

pacing sordid circles
with rambling feet
shot off the curve
of this smoking hip

behind me
an errant path
of scar-let tracks

it's so silly
really

all the things we did
and didn't do

all the things we said
and meant to follow through

A year from now a man
will be thinking aloud
asking God if he eats right
and quits drinking and smoking
will you rid me of the cancer
but God will start laughing
and that will be the answer
so the man will move to Africa
and then to India where there
are many a God and naked
dancers but the chancre
wouldn't go away so he went
to New Hampshire where a doctor
said so sad, so sad as he said
to his secretary who was pulling
up her *******, oh yeah, honey,
take all of this poor man's money
and make him feel younger again
and so swell, so she did and the old
man returned to the mountains
and his cabin staring at pine knots
on the wall that all look so strange
so he'll pick up his gun and shoot
his old woman, his dog, then himself
thinking life is a rotten godforsaken
place when a man can't afford to live
and our healthcare system is a disgrace.

I dreamed of two men
cold as ice in dark hats
handcuffing a woman
before tossing her in the back
of a black barred truck
with stars on the sides
and a To Protect and Serve
bumper sticker stuck like
a punchline and a baby girl
and young boy were crying
standing behind the yellow lines
but two has never been
a number that adds up to
nothing because it's only legal
to pass one at a time in these
dark days of executive orders
you fear because you know
it's all the evidence they need
to make you disappear.