#75

Ring it in. Or vibrate. Every phrase that dangles. In the parking lot, Mimi poses midst the snow. Capture. The light of rooms with fixtures, a thicket of lamps to cross. Damian, Matty, Les, and Sara. I am 26. One more, the one, tomorrow, thrill. Phrases to remember. Howdy. Down boy. Let's spend the morning in bed.

#74

Bill on the phone. A Brooklyn rain. I walk in squares and rectangles to see things. People whose names cling like sweaters, soft. The tenor and tremble of voices that pronounce them. Wear a jacket for the cold, my collar open, neck exposed. I like the light of mornings when the storms have paused. The glare through a window and my wince, thankful. Remember the heat of carried coffee in mittened hands through wind. The jut and jolt of subway carriage and all its lookers-on.

Sensations that sting or burn or flutter. Cement floors at night, cocktails with nutmeg and cinnamon sticks, the pause before doors open. Oh, to be forever in the beds of hosts, the sights at waking white and borrowed. The temporary tempting towards the future, the unfamiliar promising to remain, and remain so. Hands that skirt the skins of others. Texts I know and new once more.

#73

The sharp line of sun on the west side of 11th Street. Ryan Bezek and I in the 4th grade, swearing up a storm under the basketball hoop. A pair of "rockstar-tight" jeans that part of me was too big for. Blake at the Station in DC: the black and white's contrast lost in the school's ancient scanner. Azazel, inexplicably unhappy, and refusing his food. The word aversion: it contains a version (of what?). Thick and horrifying edges of dirt along the walls in the hallway outside Tip's room. A Preacher comic book for my brother.

#72

Not her: The Unacceptable Gifts of Motherhood . . . . Finished. Put Stephen aside. One less reader now. "Wish I had a Cranly," told him. Square. And walked through winter snow to school. Inclining sky. Recall, the library.

Love? A center aisle, center seat - many men around. Brokeback film, poor-rear plot. And yet the tears of elders. Scott's admonition: romance qua. Sideburns and bristled lips. Such shallow sights that rise.

Fashion, I said from the couch. Playing with yourself. Costly uniforms. Jude and John and Tom and Rich, Damian, Geoff and Steven, Mike and Jon and Gregg and Matt and Mark and Daniel, Dave, and Jesse, Micah, Scott and Evan, Stu and Steve and Jon and Troy and Bill and Jeff. Missing something solid, true. And night, the costume? Red striped briefs and Diesel jeans, Brooklyn chain and camo tank, my brother's shirt on top. Image, music, text. Missing something still.

Other joys for vision. Flat-screen postures and oversize bills. This is a painting, this is a quilt. And the sun opened its shutters as I walked. Dirty pond vistas, my feet sore in shoes. Not Her: The Unacceptable Gifts of Motherhood . . . . Kierkegaard epitah. Hidden in envelope, fold. Deliver. Does no one understand? To read is not to see.

#71

A body is a body, yes. And the taut of muscle, mine. Image, movement, texture. I like windstrewn, I like chapped, I like weathered words in winter, and the warmth they store inside. Scratch that. Rub. Hairs that shade the cheeks and chin. Snow. Scarves on scholars, fog-formed lips. Wool folds, increase. Your hand of legible vein and bone. The clasp of cotton glove.

All day, and my mind wonders. Willing, with weight in grasp, to settle instead of sight. Turn calendar pages. Margins. Lines that form, and love them. Smell what the water's heat removes. My tongue to another tied. Like that, the poem that follows shallow proses. And the towell left damp on the living room chair.

My brothers ring of wedding plans. And childrens prize, mirth coming. January. My heard that's travelled wilder. So often been retreated. Take it, trade. The mode of picture discourse. I him, I haw, I hurdle last. When will light find skin and breath? Flesh of my flesh, and other's flesh the time.

#70

At a party, I will meet new people. Cindy Sherman's photographs. See in a swarming motion the polygonal urges. Tiny, tiny cameras. Where light falls upon the precarious idol. The author signs his letter Stephen, and Melanie stands in the cold with a cigarette.

Auto-homage. Illuminate. Morning yoga, the body of Sofia wet with sun. Camera on floor. The sound of it. Closet wardrobe opposite the winter glass, and the tiny bed the animal's habit. Draw like an artist no longer. The graph paper journal Blake opened over coffee at the Nineteenth Street window.

Do your eyes detail? Ears wander over scars and bumps. Before, the word is an image, and after. A stack of comic books on my bedstand. Shirtless men and women prose. My mother's cane and the accident overseas. The men that flocked to hear. Take what doesn't burn and scatter it among the diamonds. We will run and stomp and fall as memory.

#69