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- Drinking Nebuchadnezzars
She's safely searing and
they will soon be wolves.
They stand tall and
jeweled around her,
Kings with plastic
cups, coronas.
They are sometimes friends,
even teachers, disguised
but tinctured
mad.
They have dead glitter eyes
and practice
parching gulps from
goblets filled with deserts.
She fears the sands at night,
dunes one-trail lonely,
but would wear a crown for company.
Instead, she is tucked
into the furnace
by invisible hands.
The pack circles cold
while, warm, she regrets
sand and madness.
- Age of the Dinosaurs - for C. Brochu
He would be a reptile.
Already his eyes are
cold logic-green.
His walk is a predator,
leading with shoulders,
darting looks.
He delights in old bones
and doesn't flinch
to picture his
death sprawl.
- Numb-drunk Counting
The roar on my neck
is hot with smoke, sweet
with the sweat and pitchers
of so many different brands, bodies
of drinkers.
My cheeks and ears flame, the sound
swallowed loud, and only ice is cold-crushed
on my teeth against the beat.
Bo pinches her face, tells me
how numb-drunk she counts, and
I smile to record with clear eyes,
a scientist to these friends.
The cops come in early,
and I enjoy the anxiety; I rise,
leading home slow-stepping neighbors
in a singing, cold-clutched huddle.
In my room alone, the roar fades
to pink my skin and my ears
clear, eyes water smokeless. Tonight
I am nineteen, and tomorrow I'll wake,
thirty, alone, unloved and sober.
- September 2003
- The Nautilus, River Visionary, and others.
- August 2003
- Poems.
- Older Poems
- International Rummy, To Swing Tired, and others.
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