i want to capture strange tendernesses with you

i want to capture strange tendernesses with you and put them in cardboard boxes with homemade mazes like rats

we’ll need a stopwatch.

one strange tenderness has a diet of lemonade

one strange tenderness has a diet of oatmeal and small rocks

one strange tenderness we cuddle in our hands every morning while the sun comes up

does this last one run slower

delirious with the memory of its sunrise love?

a good scientist treats his hypothesis

like a walrus treats his baguette

"what's it gonna do next?" he asks

(it's just a fancy word
for long bread).

I'm A Cross-Dressing Spider

I'm a cross-dressing spider
And flies are my meals
But it's hard to catch flies
In my bra and high heels.

Lifeguards Are Sometimes Jerks

I went to the beach to go swim in the sea

“You can’t swim,” said the lifeguard. “You don’t have a key.”

“There’s no key to the sea!” I responded with rage

But that second he pushed me inside of a cage.

“If you’re clever enough,” he said then, “to get free

Then you’re too smart to drown, and that’s less work for me.”

“Are you kidding?” I said. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“Nope, not really,” he said, and he sipped on his Coke.

Well, I’d come there with nothing, except for my clothes

What was I s’posed to do? Pick the lock with my toes?

“Come on, lifeguard!” I said. “Why ya doin’ this crap?”

“Cause I dig it,” he told me. “Now shut ya damn trap.”

So I waited all day in that stupid locked cage

With my skin turning pink from both sunburn and rage

And when night fell I said, “Man, I’ve had it! No more!”

And the lifeguard said, “Fine, dude. But first, sweep the floor.”

“Oh, now I’m your slave?” I said. “Isn’t that grand!”

But I looked then and saw: I was standing on sand.

Anthropo-Floral Romance

If I only had the power, I would turn into a flower

Fuse my legs into a stem and make ‘em green
The stem will have stomata, or at least I think it oughta

And my leaves will have a healthy, waxy sheen.

After that, I will be aimin’ to turn torso into stamen

Eyes and mouth and ears to petals, one by one

I’ll make pollen with my anthers; I’ll have seeds as black as panthers

And my petals will be yellow when I’m done.

Then you’ll come along and pick me, take me home and gently stick me

In a vase I know you keep in your boudoir

You’ll gaze serenely at my beauty, smell my fragrance (slightly fruity)

And admire how I’m golden like a star.

Then at night I’ll watch you sleeping, and I’ll silently be weeping

‘Cause I’ll never sleep with you, no not with you

But you won’t detect my mourning upon waking in the morning

‘Cause you’ll see my tears and think they’re only dew.

You will give me water daily, and you’ll play your ukulele

For me, having read that music’s good for plants

Then you’ll sit and do your quilting, and I’ll watch you, slowly wilting

Petals shrink, detach and fall—a morbid dance.

After days of petal shedding (which is like a slow beheading)

You will think that I look bare and past my prime

So you’ll throw me in the bin, and shut the lid (a clash of tin)

And that’s the end…but we were lovers, for a time.