center

I can see Chere, hip Chere,
with thick, long brown hair,
t-shirts and faded Levi’s—
grunge cool before
Starbuck’s set up
its first coffee shop.

What is the value of surrealism, of surprise? Do we get better at dancing with/among the downpour, choosing when & when not to, do we get tired—what’s the balance? The balance may come in the variety.

One of the children will lose her daughter
in one of the towers on  9/11.
 
One of the children will run a huge publishing house
selling best-sellers about 9/11.

He had kept the tooth pressed into my palm the whole time, and now it stuck there in a skin-pit of its own carving. The blood had all but dried. Watching it, I was momentarily convinced that the tooth was moving, shaking somehow by itself, but I came to realize it was, in fact, my own heartbeat...

Today it is Palestine. 
Tomorrow 
they will come 
for all the rest 
of the malcontents,

they understand that adjectives
are the wrong kind of solution
and that the verbs will only arrive
once it is too late

A CRYPTID slams down from the ceiling like a soggy futon stuffed with gossip, hitting the floor with a sound halfway between a slap and a whimper, then immediately begins steaming—not with heat, but personal humidity.

We’re not afraid.
We’re not here.
We’re molting.
We’re unpracticing breath.
We’re clinging to the bell rope.
We’re kissing the morphine drip.

The VW bus rocked and giggled inside, snowflakes falling like feathers that night on Providence. Drawn to the clouds of piney smoke seeping from the bus, I couldn’t cover my loud laughter.

They speak of charity
Resenting the little they give
And of mercy
When merciless with those whose trust they have betrayed,