marijuana was legal/ the park behind the bamboo trees was home to inbred flowers/ that is where you licked both of my hands/ tied my bangin’ hair to a semi-drunk spaniel, “it’s ok, the dog is asleep.” you said/ it was a lie & it’s always a lie, such a fucking lie/ your lie became animated with eye pupils/green & mushy/ my hair started to take flight/”glup! slurp!”/the drunk spaniel had chewed the helium leaking like a pissy thong/from me/from the bamboo lips/there was no stopping/& ears that smelled like clam chowder on my breath/ we floated up, up & you waved my fallen shoe at me in a cursed goodbye/the dog barked/ bended his paws through wax paper clouds, chasing the glitter holes that were blinding us & everywhere/it was china town emergency/ the cops/fried slug broth in sugar bowls/in mouth/& the cops kept torching the night sky/ throwing soup cans with rolled up requests for me & spaniel to land on earth, but I had just begun to eat marshmallows with zero calories, ya know? ya feel? & spaniel agreed, so I took the requests & put the roll-ups between the holes/ the night sky lit up, so lilted, so like a dirty skirt in a splooge fire/ the last thing I saw was your face, turning color & punching air with your mega bushy groin, so you can have a little taste of the magic bamboo shoots/ the starlight spewed ashes from my lungs. you still ask me about that night/not together but ours/first date/first hand sex we winged every time you go down on me, what a royal piss it was. but now, like today in this maybe rented apartment/it’s a blank dear, oh dear, fo sho.

You are sitting in bed
sweating out a chicken
noodle soup. You watch
from afar.

Teng and Cruz live in a paint speckled
apartment. Teng is dotting the ceiling
and the walls with her skinny pale fingers.

She is poking craters into
the moon at night. She is
sending men to their deaths
with holes in their skulls by doing wet
willies in their temples, execution style.

They have gentrified the yuppies.
Cruz has brought the soul back
to the streets. Teng has blown
up all of the art museums.

Such tackiness. Silly ang moh.
Damned gringos. White flight.
New Harlem Renaissance.

But sometimes they are tender
and they lead the yuppies into
coffee shops and buy them muffins.

You watch them dancing and laughing,
you have a pair of binoculars. You
are their peeping tom.

You are also Pork Bun’s baby sitter.
Sometimes they call you whenever
it’s time for them to sing at the
Yum Cha club.

In the afternoon you hear them
echoing, eres para mí, Nǐ hé wǒ,
always, always, always.

You know who they are. You watched
Teng and Cruz, hand in hand, in loving
embrace, almost forming their own cocoon,
crash into Mother Earth as a meteor
on the Lunar Year. They woke with
their lips connected.

Sweetness exchanged, mi amor.
No pendejas shall steal you.

It was a cold night, you figured
you had too much eggnog, despite
that it wasn’t Christmas anymore.
But they were so beautiful. You
couldn’t your get eyes off of them.

So much so that when
they were looking for a
caretaker for their daughter,
Pork Bun, you were the first
email in their inbox.

Your cover letter looked
like this:I can cook a meen
meel, I can speak conversational
Spanish, I was once a yoga instructor.

You couldn’t spell or split
your lips to form coherent
sentences. And yet, they
hired you. Silly Ang moh
wants to be our friend.

some gifts we graciously accept
, some gifts we are bludgeoned
with: in the case of home invasion
, they launch an attack (a baseball
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp bat

& propane tank whacked
across the head: these ppl
are stupid…they won’t
ever understand: i shan’t
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp fall

down, not when faced w/
their ugliness. their terra
form violent porn of pos
-session is their own to
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp own

. knots bind, tie contracts to
this. i’m finding painc flash
-backs tacked to the inside
of my mind: is this really
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp healing

. big words like brave are nothing about
which to rave when disco schizos go
sicko in your very own place, even if
you do lock the front gate. now, leaving
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp home

, i hunch like aunt cora stealing a paint
-ing as i imagine them laughing as if
partying, calling out i got the little cunt
. that cunt is you: bleeding, i turn
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp blue

66 with nothing better to do i make the fifth to last yellow light home
déjà vu shopping center
jujitsu studio beulah baptist church

67 with nothing better to do i walk by the big whale in the sky sacred stadium

68 with nothing better to do i walk by the liquor store
peak oil russian thistle holy fire walk by
the largest hotel in tuscaloosa they had the democratic state convention there

69 with nothing better to do i walk by an out of place playground
translated world of glass moonrocks
bronze of a maubilian’s death mask
neptune the wild old women looking for partners

70 with nothing better to do i walk by love or sex or marriage
old love or sex or marriage walk by
black mold blight rubbed out colors lines
that glow

Scattered Ashes

Most of my life is a game of racquetball
(I can’t like any of myself).

This poem is a translation
from the jar of tears I never cried
after watching The Elephant Man
and gasping, seeing that John Merrick’s left hand
was the only part of his body that was not disfigured,
and thinking that its calmness was spreading
across his body
to make him radiate beauty.

I thought there was a poem to be found there,
but something didn’t quite fit.

I wanted to relate it to my own self
but I could not locate my own unscathed left hand.

My actual left hand bears a small white scar
from where I accidentally lacerated the tissue
when I was eight years old at my younger sister’s
birthday party; I was trying to make a mask
out of a weird kind of camouflage party hat
(the world writes its own poems).

I am more like a fish
in a glass bowl
that is rolling down the side of a mountain

and the bowl shows my reflection
and the bowl never breaks.

You told me that all my attributes
are more than just a fortress
to surround something rotten

but you are speaking to a wall

and I am standing
behind it.

Motion Sickness
after Conor Oberst

Life is not a room
People don’t just enter
through some door
drop odd objects and disappear
Everything including you
is in constant motion
The first time I died
my failed red heart had to choose
just one way to paint my body
I could have been a ballerina
spinning frantic, toppling over
into stupor
I could have been a trembling hand
I became a peeling wall
a black hole
a beacon of loneliness
became abstract fire
to warn rooms of people
avert, avert your eyes
I radiate nothing, save for
this pale beam of doubt
please don’t watch my light
that smacks the floor and shatters
I am searching for a place to feel solid
standing still before the thunderstorm
this planet holding its breath
getting dragged around the Sun