#rjequality

I could just shave up to my ankles Said to me by a man who doesn't Read but was reading a magazine I left a towel on the stove & stepped Into the shower & started to shower Last night I ate a handful of almonds And sang to someone I don't know Last night I knew how to live w/ it And forgot to write out the directions A new shirt came in & a new roast I'm trying real hard to listen to others I try really hard to also listen to you The best poem was written in 1969 We spent so much money on it too

We shucked rocks at the snake We picked posies -- I want to write Hyacinths, but they were posies -- We named things & took notes At the reactions to their names. Once you caught a sunfish & I saw six hatchlings slither Into Put-In-Bay. Once you Caught a bluegill & made me Take out the hook & I didn't Think to say it then but I thought : Fuck you & felt so bad afterwards I washed my own mouth out. Tonight we're drunk again But talking -- well, texting -- About our parents for probably The very first time. You say : I've got a song stuck in my head : Me too, I say, except it isn't a song It's us walking under Grace Cathedral Completely out of breath & sweaty.

yesterday I swizzled Margaret something mean & midwestern I let her catch dust I let anything happen on Tuesdays with icicles & wild ire dialogues in an open hand catch me some metric symmetry some gasoline drops out of the ear but the oracles read our future in her frets: let’s spend less time being ourselves & more time being each other the fireflies do their thing at night Margaret does better     for Margaret Thatcher (2008-2012)

got caught up in these last three afternoons listening to children talk about space & times when poems feel like the only planets worth looking at or stepping on i’m guilty of it too ambivalence in the mouth sticking out like a sucker in the rain keep your eyes at the level of their ears the chorus says: when you feel like shrinking shrink no, no. why am i so afraid of chatter? i am not the politician’s floor speech that stoops down to haunt our interiors when you feel like shrinking shrink my hair keeps browning but i am not warfare when the door opens shake the first hand you can find

Daedalus combs the bay for the shape of his dead son he finds a wooden hand grasping a sand dollar I am his monster Monsanto with my fingers in everyone's drinks at the party I cruise the back of the bar for someone we might know or someone to fuck us the bathroom lights wave to us our fingers on the shutters I am the rip in the skies the day Daedalus returned to the lathe [ / . . . . . . . . . . . . ] How can I write poetry? my father loves me