Densities 184

I wouldn't call it love

although I am attracted to the whole

package

I am apt to ply her with rum and recite

poetry while locking gazes in a shared

intimacy that has no ribbons to untie

*

for tahseen

Densities 182

I like my life

there is nothing missing

everything missing is a blur

riding words through a vermigrade rodeo of

switchbacks and hairpin turns

one wheel always over the edge

like it or not

look who's talking

its an obsession somebody owes us

it just makes sense

Densities 181

the junk we collect

in our loneliness

gives us away

birds fall from the sky

cattle lay down on the job

monday's long wait at the station

where nothing came and went

sleeping 12 hours in 3 hours

and forgetting the feasting

and the beasts that nest inside

the banquet

a hunger unloved in a cage

hardly barely begun

*

Densities 178

Another dead end

this one replete with a beautiful

woman

wearing a lead vest and

and a spiked collar

we made love under the

no outlet sign

it was okay

she was a tiny unopened rose

on a hill

dreaming of her next career

move

*

densities 169

rats in the attic

rats in the walls

the chimes you gave me

the cold water squat

your silence around the silence

we can never share

is a wilderness of darkness

a wilderness of insomnia

an absence in shoes with a deadpan stare

densities 166

I can't recall those fine feelings

just like that

they took a long time to die

I buried them alive

in our garden

I could hear them gasping for air

month after month

finally my skin fell off in the mirror

the rose bush died

now I remember!