Necklace and Horn

Sometimes I am sitting in a beautiful hotel room thinking how beautiful it is.
And sometimes I'm not. Those are two exactly different moments for me.
I know you can't come into the room because you are driving a cab.
I like to think I understand your evening hair against the driver's seat
and the snow-blur that happens as the wipers pass over the glass into wings.
If you came into the room this is important.
You would change the entire scene. You make noise and have a family.
You are stranger than me. You would not find this room beautiful.
You would say
Why are you sitting in the deep hole?
What I'm saying is that the curtains are not silk and there are no chocolate coupons
on the pillows placed by a delicate maid. I don't want there to be maids.
I would rather this all appeared and disappeared
like the tossed cigarette ends crushed loose in your tire thumbprints.
That's what I'm thinking in the hotel room when a couple enters. I don't know them.
I think they are beautiful. There is nothing I can do about how spectacular they are
and how cruel they are to each other, how out of place I feel and am surrounded by.
Their fragrant arguing hurts my lungs.
I said fragrant because they smell like each other (earth and basement).
When they fight I am on the bed thinking and then they notice me and say come on
get out of here, we're fighting, and I go.
Do you see how uneven this is?
When you go into a shop and you enjoy it onehundredpercent of the workers hate you
for coming in and eyeing them and messing their morning pyramids and cake displays
with your hands.
When you come into a store you think it's there
for you to touch but it isn't. Nothing is here for you.
Someone put it here
someone untouchably attractive and tired.
The interior of your warm cab and the cracked brown seats are
exactly what I wanted and what
today so lovingly pushed into my arms

Cufflinks

We’re in this once! and unlike animals
have repercussions. I’m walking out
on the city street (faster
busier upside-down)
and could explode
like everyone else
from coffee and ideas.
Don’t you want to sleep with someone who explodes?
Here’s something I’ve always noticed:
instability is very attractive.
How many times have we picked a person
to run the world we don’t understand
and studying the sky ball for a few seconds
we get how it is microscopic
what we fight our wars on.
You are not always going to feel
the way horses breathe into your hands
to smell you. There are no pianos
in the pyramids and no TV On The Radio
even though I’m pretty both are
close to puking rain.
Why do we laugh when we fall?
What kind of mechanism is this?
Our parents miss us being small and poison.
My sister and I enjoy ignoring ourselves
and thinking about each other instead.
I think this is beautiful.
When you call someone
and don’t know what to say
you have so much to say
I think this is beautiful.
You could say it's my favorite word.

A Narrative

At long last he came to the moat,
but the shifty-eyed child under the pagoda
caused his lordship to doubt the oracle's predictions
and he clutched the tattered manuscript tighter to his chest.

Meanwhile, in the grotto, the baker's daughter in an embrace
with the dashing young haberdasher, makes the fateful discovery
that his birthmark is on the wrong cheek
and the townsfolk are never to hear from her again.

By the Canterbury Inn, the mob gathered
calling out for blood and retribution
only to be greeted by an empty carriage and its contents:
a bouquet of withered rose petals and a monacle.

On the following Sunday,
having directed the servants to draw a bath,
Mr. X_______ soaks in his late uncle's tub,
and tears up the gold-sealed envelope unread.

But despite the widow's dire warning
no message had come from the asylum
and they hugged each other, breathing a sigh of relief
only to be interrupted by a sound coming from behind the cellar door.

Indeed, after they had found the remains of his vestments in the shrubbery
it now became apparent that something had happened
to the young curate and there was nothing left for them to do
but wait until sundown to make the grim announcement.

At the rooster's crow, however, the apothecary and his assistant
finally finished burying the evidence and they celebrated
with a snifter of port each only for the apothecary to too late
notice his speech slurring a little too much a little too soon.

That noon the thirteen guests gathered around the table
and eagerly awaited the tycoon's further instructions
only for the timid young typesetter to notice a card upon her chair
which read: Goodbye, my compatriots. Don't look up.

*

Here's a new piece. It was great to see you all on Tuesday. Now let's poesy! G