Guy walks into an advertising agency

When you wake up in the
middle of the night and
wonder what you forgot?

• There's no such thing as ghosts.
• Babies get fairies to do things.
• There are snakes that go months without eating.
• One day she just started judging people.
• I know everything about you,
  
• you're very impressive.
  
• Yes. Go bang your head against a wall.
  
• You sound like Burl Ives.
• He had his fourth coronary behind the wheel.
• Shhh.
  
• Japan.
  

Folgier's in My Cup

I came with your face on my laptop
after plugging the operating system,
flagging data fields under partly-cloudy skies
of high atmospheric particle levels.

A pop-up ad interrupted everything.
I lit a cigarette and linked into a saturated fat.
Clicking on the Lotus position, I fixed my tie
and downloaded a new app-organizing app.

I once heard a sound at the shore of a lake.
A massive object cast a malignant shadow.
It was the Storm -- the new BlackBerry Storm
available only on the world's largest 3-G network

I signed the family contract. On bad nights,
red with unlimited text, I fled
from the high-resolution display, screaming,
in a loop: the best part of waking up is

a warm toilet seat, a distant memory
of you, doused in flour,
ironing my shirt with a rolling pin
or scanning the Times with an insidious grin.

If they refuse, it may delay the air in the criminal trial of the case.

You will get nothing
beyond this and that.
And no one will fly
you to the moon. How
will you respond to this?
You will maintain that
the moon will fly to you.
And then when the moon
comes crashing into the
earth, drunk and angry,
you will believe that you
willed it by being so
charming. And when they
bring you to trial for just
such a crime, you will
deny it while the moon
looks on, dejected and
wondering what happened.
You jerk.

The Mountain King

We wanted something with the
word love in it. I always felt that
we met so that both of our lives
could be better. I keep scratching
at it, trying to get into it. I'm sorry
I don't know all the things you want.
I bought you some clothes. I'm in the
living room. Someday you'll want
something and I won't be able to
give it to you. I know it's hard to
understand, but everything is going
to be okay. The only thing keeping
you from being happy is the belief
that you are alone. People don't
change. I don't care if it's snowing
or hailing or a hundred degrees.
Please don't tell. I almost called
the police.

Maiden Form

I think about the summer
they executed the Rosenbergs.
It's a tradition that we have our ribs
and fashion show every year on this day.
Coordinated sabotage and rebellion.
Everybody's happy. I'm building
a bomb shelter. Let me know
if you need a reference. I see her crossing
the widow's walk with an eye to the sea. I'm
very important to the agency. Call me from
the emergency room where she loves to
do the watusi. It goes along for a while, then
it takes a turn and ends up exactly where you
thought it was going. John Wayne shot him.
Apparently I've already signed off on it. Two
sides of one woman. What, you didn't think I
had a mother? It's okay. People start giving
you things -- they think it's cute.

No one told me about this.
I'm taking pictures.

A Change of Heart

Good Friday at my sister's condo in River Peak.
Salty fish brought out the worst in us.
Under the table, you removed your hand
to curl two Xanax between your lips.

The children inverted themselves in the den
and the dull pains in my arm began.
I considered our basement of childhood ghosts
who pinned my forehead as I slept.

Eons ago, I failed St. Francis elementary
but climbed the restricted staircase
to the green yard, cool with the breeze of your face.
Now, before the resurrection, I've drooled.

Have I made the right decisions? A hair fell
from my head to your halibut and blurred.
I clutched my chest and sank, singing
for "aspirin, four aspirin, please..."

You placed the doctor-recommended Bayer inside me.
I crushed it to receive the vascular release,
a new brand of ghostly fingers. Today, I learned
effective relief, damage reduction, to expect wonders.

HIP

Spring fools the rushes
in slow deliberate thrusts
of bird through stone:

a single crane and
a thousand paper pebbles
casting off wearisome battles
for the snow.

While marbled tigers net
bull profits and bare markets,
NASDAQ's photosynthetic finish
and blood-green veneer slides

into the roots and garlands
of an old woman's rosary
hiked thin up her thigh,
exhausting arthritic teeth.

Molars bend in the wind,
incisors break, pollinating
the subtle real estate of age
and need, bone-brittle reeds of poverty.

In The Room

British colonists cauterize the asphalt
lashes of the hands we've held,
the fingernail irises crossing
hairy retinas in the sand:

a humid sign-language that reads you,
some semiautomatic carpal-tunnel
diem, wiggling fingers pointed
backwards beyond the blind triggers
and sloshing at the surf of our genitals' fist.

Inroads and ice break ships and trucks
across palms and cheeks, a steamy sweat
hacking tangles of eczema fronds,
follicles grown from our jointed knuckle
speaking a deader Latin:

Dr. Livingstone, I presume?
Ujiji and Mary Tyler Moore come on
the face of the same mountain with one knife
tied behind the other's back,
locked fingers ending slavery

and the triangle trade between you, me,
and the elephants

*Summer, Winter: Squash, Machine*

The chugging motion
of the seasons
forms an egg, cracks inside
jokes
outwitting us all.

"One way to beat
this system is to join
the army!"
he railed, fingers
snapping. And that's how

we clipped the topic, dropping scissor
explosives, reviewing
the internal designs of the land.

Blame us and we will fill
the cracks with cement.
Lips close
heavy with burden: the concept

of time, enormous
apples, odd thoughts,
grunts
with blacked-out faces
plucking the dead
skin of summer
squash upon our neon highway.

Protected identities
blossom in salt and ice.
Wordless whispers
follow the borders
of four territories
with unique code names:

Winter, Spring, Fall and Summer.
Only not exactly in that order.

The process does not change --
it simply repeats.
Again. And again. And again.

Eventually we may run out
of raw sources, cell
numbers, complex
thoughts, small potatoes.
Eventually
we might just leave it
to the living
room around us,
'cause there's always time,
time to leave and let

the automatic system
of 100% natural bodies
quell the verbal riot, eternal
complaint of the innate
ability to do ourselves in
right,
right in the nick of time.

*Before the end of the beginning*

In the ear
lips move
no words
if I
could ask
I would
ask how
we escape
your father
who knew
from bulbs
heads hung
in gardens
we dug
naked
before
and will
when they
bring us up
to speed
I buried
my nose
inside
your neck
you buried
your mouth
inside
my ear
as we
buried
your father
inside
your head
you said
this must be
the end
but I heard it
and I said it
simply
never began

*An toll-free number appeared on the screen*

We sat down to a hot cup of decaf
at the winged oak table in the kitchen
of our modest colonial three-bedroom.
The children were frozen on the lawn.

We felt our toaster produce
the two slices of machine-cut bread
you bought at a Stop 'n Shop
perched by the entrance to highway 9.

The omega-3-rich margarine on my toast
reminded me of the way you spread your legs
that night in Atlantic City;
you were watching my cholesterol.

I signed my name on the 'X'
of the AARP supplemental life insurance form
framed on the Martha Stewart place mat
your mother once glued to her television set.

Steam rose from the coffee,
scattering the lines of your Libran figure.
The gym membership paid off after all.
All of it will.