Housekeeping

Throw your baseball cap
in the dishwasher.   (This
could be your son.)   Use
diminutive language.   Clean
the kitchen, try to get
high.   Remember:   you are fascinated
by repetition.   (you are
a human being.
              A letter comes
to “DAD” from Richmond.   For fear
of Federales, do not open.   It’s probably
an acronym.   Instead, buy expensive
underpants.   Knit a knit suitcase
reinforced with discarded three-
ring binders.   Swallow everything.


Explication

I am behind you
in the stairwell
explaining my
absence, that I had
purchased a book
and would accept
two more.   I appreciate
value.   I will buy
two toothpaste tubes
for the price of one-
and-a-half.   I am
a happy American.
I am fit enough
to enjoy a little
snacking.   I have
a girlfriend.   I have
a twelve-speed bike.
My girlfriend
is a twelve-speed bike.
I was androgynous as a ten-
year-old; I had long,
beautiful eyelashes
and red red lips.


Dear,

all of these salted
crackers represent
love.   jangling keys
stand for consumerism
and self concept:
catalytic, you leave me
without nexus— excited
particles conform to skin
of a balloon giraffe,
an emptied mayonnaise jar

the physical aspect of matter
is a kind of honorific assigned
to colliding energies— particles
of space connecting space
so when my sleeves give way to elbows
whatever’s really going on
has as much to do with being still
as a swinging lamp,
bleeding lotus flowers
and rose-red wine.


[How to un-do things:]

How to un-do things:
Cut directly through
the center—peel the subject’s
skin, fit to something more
deserving.   We are
all divine, perfect images
of a vengeful schizoid—
There is nothing more
frustrating than waiting
in line at the Post Office,
and little halves of books
are kind and unassuming.
The best customer
is a repeat customer.
For these many years
rain’s been falling sulfur
dioxide and various mono
nitrogen-oxide hammers.
I billow through the troposphere
collecting notes for maps.


My Body

Parts of me are falling off
and acting like they know what’s going on.
An expression of my recessive genes
has appointments in two different cities,
each accessible by greyhound.
My nose inchworms across the carpet,
encouraging comprehensive empathy
for other selves I’ve met.   Not that I need
reminders, really, it’s just there are
so many parts. My nasopharynx wants
to eat Korean noodles—the rest
disagree.   I’m glad you seem to understand;
I want someone who seems
     to understand.

All that glows sees

Kara Lease

The Angelic Organic

I almost miss the cacophony 

of Brash Crashing syllables

that New England
way of sounding

off on the street



that porch on Manchester

Street, that apartment

with carbon dioxide sneaking in
with the heat,
filling rooms in a drowsy fog



the street lights buzzing clementines

above the neighbor who has fallen
drunkenly in the street
and a band
of angry rescuers
Yell and drag at him 

in the confusion 



half a dream, I was resigned to 

the mess of it all

A dash of freckled sun

that was you in the winter



By spring the sky unfolded
and I was gone

1

i remember anne
mostly as a voice
on the phone or
a body curled over
the kitchen counter
crying at the end
of something i was
too young to understand

it turns out she died
4 years ago
somewhere in nevada

i didnít even know
she’d moved

poets and outlaws as
sparkling fuses between
the beating of wings
and the blinking of
buzzards in a desert
no oneís bothered to name

and later, pieces of harold
lloydís hand in the
prop bucket

and youíll never have to work again.

2

eddie finds a few
factoids and lorca’s
left eye on the
clearance rack in
the curiosity shop
of the human heart
they pay for themselves

and he walks out into
the world w/ a new found
faith in the christian work
ethic and lorca’s left
eye in his back pocket

the squealing of tires
and monday morning hung-over
moaning of would be
olympians manages to
keep the birds away
in a city where all
the signs read
fuck you pay me

Let us take all the long time we need
To wake up from our overdue dreams
Get out of the bed, and stretch our
Limbs as far as possible for a new morning

Let us take all the long time we need
To listen to the first song of the birds
Watch the rise of this summer sun, feel
The breeze combing each tree with tenderness

Let us take all the long time we need
To enjoy being together with our beloved
Exchange a smile so that they can stay with
Us just a few seconds or even minutes longer

Yes, let’s take all the long time we need
To drink this tea, to chat about this weather
To look back at the road we have travelled along
To think, to cry, and to die in lingering twilight