Transitions

In the tub

Eating a hundred plastic dinosaurs

Swallowing tiny stegosaurus spikes

Feeling Jurassic.

On the roof

Planting a hundred yellow daffodils

Watching the sun watch me plant daffodils

Feeling paranoid about the possible personhood of the sun.

In the bed

Scratching my ears with a fork

Scratching the fork with my ears

Tickling between the four prongs

The fork laughs…

In my dreams

Hearing the laughter of the fork

Digesting the dinosaurs

Feeling paranoid about the possible personhood of the moon…

Because, are they on our side, the celestial bodies?

It hurts

I can’t digest the dinosaurs

I wake up with sun in one eye and moon in the other

I can’t remember how many daffodils

Or whether I watered them

Or whether they were seeds or bulbs

Or whether I grew from or was planted in this world.

Termites

One child has termites in his belly.

They are grateful for the food.

They pass it among themselves, termite mouth to termite mouth.

Each termite plays a part in digestion.

When the sun sets, you can hear them say “Goodnight, Mom.”

They have no other word to refer to the child.

A Man Who Needs a Friend

There is a little man who lives in a little house and hates whenever he sees something blue.

If you offer him a stick of gum and it is green no problem.

If you offer him a stick of gum and it is blue he will pull out fistfuls of his own hair and shove them madly into the small spaces surrounding his eyeballs.

If you show him a poem you wrote in black ink no problem.

If you show him a poem you wrote in blue ink he will bellow and whine and screech and howl and defecate in graveyards.

Please be his friend.

He so desperately needs you to show him things that aren’t blue...

To Sit Still Long Enough...

At night when you can sit still

Long enough to love the cockroaches

Long enough to forgive them their germs, their exoskeletons

Long enough to invite them warmly into this world

Long enough to know that they are you, really

Then the smallest angel will alight on your shoulder

And that will be bliss.

When you arrive in Medellín

When you arrive in Medellín

The air is dirtier

The women have fake breasts

An ad the size of New York says ‘Sex Underwear’

The subway intercom tells you to smile

The sliced mangos come with salt

The old men are cute and wear their belts tight

To keep their pants from sliding down

Their flat, flat asses.

It’s all good, you know, in this tin can in the sky

It’s all good, you know, in this tin can in the sky.

They might feed you a funky croissant

Or an orange juice.

They might tell you what to do in case the plane lands in water

The flight attendant might wear makeup or he might be gay

If you write prose poems on the plane, you get to wear a blue button that says ‘Poet Aboard’

And if your eye mask is on the whole time

That’s okay

You will fly in mind wormholes the pilot does not yet understand...

The Pestering Senses

What do I understand? asked the eyes

The stripes on old gentlemen’s ties

The steam wisps that drift up from pies

The gauzy pink clouds in the skies

These I know and I like, said the eyes.

What do I understand? asked the nose

The scents of petunia and rose

The fresh fleecy smell of the snows

The mothball perfume of old clothes

These I know and I like, said the nose.

What do I understand? asked the hand

The stretch of a smooth rubber band

The squish of the peaches I’ve canned

The soft golden grit of the sand

These I know and I like, said the hand.

What do I understand? asked the ears

The roar of the crowd when it cheers

The snip-snip of haircutting shears

The seagulls that squawk at the piers

These I know and I like, said the ears.

What do I understand? asked the lips

The snot from the nose when it drips

The crunch of the salsa and chips

The sauce on the chicken wing tips

These I know and I like, said the lips.

What do I understand? asked the mind

I am not quite so simply defined

I’m in all of the senses, you’ll find

But I also reflect and remind

And my hunch is that I am entwined

With all of the cosmos combined

Sui generis, and yet unconfined

I’m…

“Look, skies!” interrupted the eyes

“Old clothes!” interrupted the nose

“Soft sand!” interrupted the hand

“Loud cheers!” interrupted the ears

“Yum! Chips!” interrupted the lips

Well, the mind heard the senses and smiled

And tended to each like a child

And sorted them out when they fought

But wished it had more time for thought.