skin so brown
she uses
moisturizer(mango, apple, cherry blossom)
thrusts arms out
so sleeves aren’t spoiled
throws hands up
like Muslim gazing Mecca
shoots gobs lime green the stuff
all on the face it goes
arms and elbows
she
has dark skin
but it is
no longer
so ashy

I may be evolving after every meal
but some unfortunates are victims of vertebrae
the spine’s base, nestled into the pelvic bowl
has yet no arms to reach
and grab the railing for support.
Perhaps I do not understand your
corrupt biology. Your own method of turning
ground flour into bone. But we are not supported
solely by the calcified frame of our bodies.
Sinuous expanding flesh works when we
are sleeping. These muscles
replenish themselves and will last until
doctors finish construction on plastic man
inside mt. charleston

You reach out your hand to me
“oh my aching back, oy vay,
we are all victims of time,
someone quick, get the nurse”
I will walk on all fours I say, I will not use my body
as a standby vehicle, waiting until death to relax.

It’s a fine mess and I cannot leave it.
I tried running toward the water,

was bounced back by an invisible force,
Jedi, perhaps, hidden lines.

the bus speeds directly at its borders,
and collides with unseen walls,

not smashing to pieces, but
slowing it with increasingly even pressure

while the engine revs higher into the red.
Cars cannot help me escape, they form

barriers unto themselves. Somehow they know.
Straight up is no option, for authorities

would be quick to shoot up and seize
me. Then surely we would

be trapped here forever. So down I try,
in a sweated, feverish final go.

This too is fruitless, plotting at the
county’s edge, searching the horizon for helicopters

digging below the electrified fence at midnight,
tubers stuck beneath my ragged nails nod empathetically,

for they are bound by the soil that nourishes them,
and are no longer bothered with this way or that.

the city grid flickers from above
purple and green, giant circuit board
the operators asleep at their desks.
Cellular phones and traffic lights connect
and evolve, the residue of movement
falls stranger to time perspective.
and the cars with yellow eyes (red
if retreating) pump like digital blood
with no heart source to discover.
cells fit perfectly into bigger cells,
garage doors close, mitochondria sleep
soundlessly on nucleolus pillows.
lights go out on the town tonight
except for transmission spelled out:
“Johnny Loves Jane” in lit rooms on a
skyscraper side. Stock brokers, real
estate agents do this willingly, leaving
their office lights on because the memo
read, “Flush the darkness and
shed light on the cold streets below.”

When the lights are extinguished
sounds no longer audible
the nerves are soothed
salient toothed beasts
go back under ground.
Two boys on LSD
watch treetops illuminated
old cars burned and abandonded
sit haunted and still
in clearings of the forgotten
corners of Indiana.
Two boys stand bathed in moon
permeated by autumn night
tarantulas on the lawn
skyspace on the horizon- beckons.
They turn toward the blue woods
a hidden ravine,
at their backs: a sleeping town.
They step inside,
their feet growing tentacles-
gray like the fresh earth.
They sink down,
treading deep in the soil.
The forest sways with a wind
as their bodies dissapear into the tangle.

all the babies have been born tonight
and they are all gone.

you may live in my hovel
sweep up the trash

I will protect you if you
do what I say.

Stay calm and no one will get hurt
even now I resort to UV lights

flickering in the back of my pregnant mind.
can’t go yet, haven’t had a chance

to get out of these shoes spill
my guts to father whats is name.

a life of grime, perhaps that’s what’s in store
and if you please you’ll be dirty too.

scraping for food for change our knuckles on the ground
but you are mine. the hands the legs the pretty face

the sineuous passion like horse glue that
holds it all together.

but I'll never be sold on cheap booze,
substance runs thin the body, precious fluids dried.

no, without you dear, I’d be
addicted to something else, heaven forbid.

There are constant voices on the sidewalk
old willows scraping at the screen
Dear God! the wind is swelling
and I might go with it
if only for a while.
I think I’ve played the human game
long enough and I’ll set sail
down Ballona Creek if it went to
somewhere that didn’t move.
There’s where I'm headed, see.
Where animals keep responding
to sounds to flickers in the atmosphere
their scalps foil antennae against the night.
I’m spinning here. It’s radiation and its
growing, but Geology is dead
always has been. If it wasn’t, it would
breathe with us, dine with us,
even duplicate with us. But it’s howling
in the wind, the swelling sound.
And I’m stepping into it,
ready to go. Ready to forfeit
the rocks this time. The dead rocks
are null to me and I’ve lost the zest
to peer down holes into
the speckled, laminated land.