My boy wears grease that
smells like cinnamon in his hair.
It lingers on the pillows
and I don’t want to forget that.

There aren’t any squash in the garden but
the blooms sure look pretty
like springtime tender
even in the eleventh month.

When there is rose
lemonade at the market
and when there are curbsides
bathed in sunlight,
maybe.

There’s an egg in the dark
and somebody talking to you.
An egg in the dark and a man—
you—under the shut sun.

When somebody calls you all light up
and walk the shores in rows
like untrustworthy mushrooms.
You are more scattered than a row

and devour the flank
after the battle. You take it down together
and peel back the flank
of the animal. Fur glued to paper.

Paper glued to the backs of your hands.
“It’s like it nourishes me.”
You finally get to be sad like the moon,
together. Everybody is mad at each other!

You don’t know them! You
know the sand. It’s thick,
like silt. Your characters exit,
presumably to have sex.

You finally believe your luck
sitting across from a great actress, who says,
“Being with other people will ruin your life.
Always should, always has to, always will.”

The universe is doing well. There are many planets. There are many planets we cannot see. Planets with names like MOA-2007-BLG-192Lb.

In the Milky Way galaxy there are 100 to 400 billion planets. If you want to name a planet you can. Name it anything you want. 

A person on Earth looks at a computer screen. The person is Larry Page. Larry Page has named two planets. Larry Page is looking at his computer screen thinking about eternity, non-existence, prostate cancer. Larry Page is going to die. In his next life, he hopes to be a Solitary Eagle, Harpyhaliaetus solitarius. He will live in South America, soar above the Peruvian rain forest.

Elsewhere, a person in a two-bedroom house watches a movie and laughs. Another person hides under a blanket and reads. Between the visible stars are more stars. Between Larry Page and the tree is twenty feet. Between Larry Page’s mind and the world is his skin.

back then u were
pulling webs out of a spider

i digged graves
subsisted on bones

crushed tomatos
to stain my lips red

I suck my teeth at you
and hear the clinking of keys

a lemon in my mouth

I used to be forgiven
but now I am not

an edge
that rounded itself

there are windows everywhere I go
but I hardly ever count them

I have never felt closer to god
than when I smile at a TV show
or maybe a child

the best things
are when it is quiet
and I am alone

I already know what your mouth tastes like:
the forest floor

in short,
wet.