A JURY OF
But all your peers are dead and
Gone. But who cares. It's not
A popularity contest, comforting.
It's a cold bed like an unkind
Massage school. Your every redoubt
Overrun by masses of bodies
Of the wrong age: her face too
Too, his affect effacing.
Be gentle to him.
Or alive, but deaf and dumb?
Say after we die we're just
No one, who's it hurt?
I want to touch hands.
Only meat can like you.
Only meat like you.
Old soul, kin, it might be
The universe's center,
Average.
THE OPPOSITE OF WEDDING
What's the opposite of hump day?
It's Tuesday! The pen goes drip drip
In my purest of gestures the blot
Which you interpret as asymmetrical
Warfare like the dull troll says drones
Don't exist silly I choose non-
Dress for our special bonding time
During which you may feel the hurray
In my new form of address miss me
The way my mother being moved
From waiting to exam room to which
No corresponding doctor attends misses
Authority who is coming to the castle
He is coming I am coming I am—
We don't arrive after all at the opposite
Of my opposite should be me and isn't
My mechanical arm reaches out
To pet you lovey to pat you flat to force
The kids to mean what we mean
To wheedle out of you the magic
Word
FACTS OF LIFE
Anxious alone I would raise a second
Comer I said bye to my maybe baby
He was of water more than wine
He would've wailed I didn't
When the storm was coming all
The water went first pulled off-shelf
Like waves pull from the shore
Where the longer they leave the harder
They come
He couldn't miss me nor I him
My voice broke I glued my eyes
To keep it together NO CRYBABIES
They say at the door since sweeties
We are made confectionery
And I forgot becoming
Him into me melts me into you
Coming to I felt helter skelter felt
Unhouseled
FACTS ON FILE
I could've been a contender I mean
I should've probably invested in real
Estate by this late date
Nobody gave me a superlative
My friend got the wrong one
He got grumpy and you'd've unliked
Yours too isn't it nice
To spend some hours wondering why
You don't all laugh more
At my jokes since I'm funny ha
Ha though strangely hard to train
Failing for example to appreciate
The tyger tyger for far far longer
Than I should've and still fuzzy
Even on the Number One Painter of Light
Despite having an imperialist's grasp
Of story this voice of mine offends
Me awfully some nights I dance
To the beat of the unkinder parent
But better thought sobbed seeing
It's true I'm buried too
In happy days