so easy. place slipped
between proper
and death. days begin.
fresh. blank. I rehydrate
everyday. the third floor
elevator doors closing. The jeep
leathered and a good luck pig
lashed on the roof. a small meeting
of beer, breath, navel. how
could you know? never.
it could not happen. how
has this come to be? no
histories to glance over, no
gestures to copy, no
divined books to follow. so
it is, your breath on skin.

Published in The North, 35. 2004

i one frost bitten day ruined
my throat. pink wet slippery
throat. noon came
to my back door. mud hugging
itself into ridges. sharp,
earth’s glare at 11:59 am,

a blue tongue. wish i knew
what tamarack means
so that i might use it
in a sentence. swinging
from her to her, kissing
my cotton bed sheets again.

eye on the dog of red
leather. bite down on dry
toast and sip tea. grandmother
spilling from her chair
into her sister’s mouths.
soft palm on my lips.

Published in The Rendezvous Reader – Northwest Writing, July 2002

eyes tell more stories
than a thousand
tiny black characters
in a line. when i saw the lady
in red leatherette
peering through
your bathroom door
at me, half-dressed,
ready to go nowhere
except the other side
of the room, i shut
them tight, there instead
were flashing white lights
with blinking red
and blue dots. i knew
it had all been some
weirdo hallucination. then
my tired self opened.
i pulled up closer
to your white
porcelin tub, firmly planted
feet first, waiting
for that morning glow.

Recorded with Awkward Star on the CD, Blue Straggler, Hipsync Records

For the neck, too many days
sitting in this chair
peeling the skins
from peanuts. I always
come back to splendid
to kneeling
with a string of blue
polyester and blond
apparitions, to the place
the mascara sits
after you dance.

Published in For Immediate Release July 2002

the weakness begins here,
between the ligaments
and patella. few know
the reasons. many claim
it’s god’s error in human-
ity. what a place, calloused
from lowly pilecarpet
linoleum or cold
cement. denim, i’ve worn
a week at most, broken
through to skin. do the knees
of gymnasts’ or dancers’
give out sooner?

Published in For Immediate Release, online poetry journal, July 2002

drinking alki ale between 45’s,
concrete arches crowd the sky.
black water fowl dry their wings
at 4pm on a cold sunday. that old
grocery with sidewalks of kittens
and labradors. homer’s been here
for forty years. do you know what
you’re doin’here? flat lands growing
with mattress skeletons,
faceless toaster ovens
and bottles of empty
22 ounce Thunder. yellowing
raspberry brambles with dwarfed
thistle crawl to the edge of this
black river. a convoy of us
from back east, emerald
city way, stood silent
listening to a drunk
recite his verses
through a plastic box
facing the grey clouds.
we just listened, we listen.

Published in The Raven Chronicles Volume 8, No. 2