everything is dripping here
(you know)

(steady)
like my cunt
like the clouds
but just the ceiling
sagging steady
and i could be crushed here
an end
in a bathtub
as romantic as i’ve always pictured
ribs stuck with
drywall wood
caved dust
crushed

and i could be somewhere
tropical

(i’m sweating round my neck)
i’ve got curls
forming round
my skin
and i could be a desert
(i’ve been one before)
all sweaty Saharan cold night swan song
and i could be a desert
and i’m just in my alley home
(curled up under sagging)
and i’ve got beer here
and i’ve got tea
i’ve got enough (to keep) me
and this is an incessant blossom
(clementines & coyotes)
and it hardly ever rains here
and I hardly ever reek (weep)

but i am sweating trainwrecks
i am swallowing
road side bombs
i am crushed
under
lamp post kisses
and i am gusto here
all hopeful coming stories
dripping salt
like it’s mine
like i’m not my alley hole
and i’ve got beer here
and i’ve got lost glories
and i have tidepools at dawn
(crushed into my armpits)
i’ve for long dream kisses
and maternal demo derbies
and i’ve got no idea what
(the inside of)
the walls are dripping of
(i know i could)
cold-cleave
out their entrails
copper guts and aortic valves
and (then) i’d drip steady
steady
(like underground rivers – like secrets lockkey passageways).
(and i’ve got)
sweaty sweaty
(and i’ve got) frizzy
hair
(and i’ve got) areolas
like hot buttered
rum
like my stepfather’s
beer
and i could be on a plateau
(drinking tea on mesa mesa)
and i could
wear pjs
in the bathtub
and i could
be crushed
under the weight
of arctic snow-bath
under the weight of
thirty-thirty

and i’ve got no lover nowhere
(and i’ve got)
slowly slowly
and this could be in texas
and this is on the shore
and this is in my ruins
(dripping out my pores).

this ain’t august
and there ain’t no moon
not tonight
not tonight
but it’s the spring holiday
all chapped lips
chipped paint
and chills
one beer forsaken
one beer forgotten
but this ain’t no vacation
just one homeless song
from continent called faraway
one hapless beat
(from street to street)
no it’s not me
no it’s not me
10 points for rigidity
and if you can
catch the puja
if you can
einee-meenie minee mo
one lost father
now let’s go
no homeland now
fuck you
fuck you
and
this ain’t no august and this ain’t no june
and tonight baby
well there ain’t no moon
so hush now
mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring
and one less thing
yeah one last thing
mama’s gonna buy you a feather tied to a string
one parachute baby
but there ain’t no moon
kiss your balloon baby
cuz there ain’t no moon
one potato
two potato
fuck potato four
count me once
and i’ve got starscapes to go
one to peru
buckle my shoe
i’ll give you diamonds baby
locked into your bed
wrapped into your diapers
i’ve got you baby
but there ain’t no moon
so god bless you
little soldier
god bless you
it’s an august sandstorm
baby
and you’re all alone
and there ain’t no moon
no compass too
just laughing faces
like oil and rainbows
but tonight baby
there ain’t no light
so just trust you
just trust you
daddy’s comin’ home soon
and so’s the moon
but there ain’t no homeland
no motherland too
so hex on you
shhh
best to you
just one scarscape too
shhh
daddy’s never comin’ home soon
so sleep baby
sleep
don’t forget to dream
a moon baby a moon
but don’t forget
it’s like the silver dollars
under your pillow
like the silver dollars
weighing down your head
hanging down your shame
silver dollars baby
behind the sand
behind the seasons
but it ain’t august
nor not November neither
just somewhere
somewhere
daddy’s gettin’ alone soon
so god bless you
god bless you

when she’s foreign and desperate
a good-hearted woman is no match for a bull-headed man
and battles manifest

i learned something today
that it’s raining in Brooklyn
that you can’t win a war with honesty

but i grew up in fields of cotton
soft and crumbling
stems cracked and dry broken open
in wisps to be gathered up by winds
no slow low singing for solace
for weathered hands
for brown-back breaking labor
sunshine on shoulders
is not a triumph
foreign and hunched over
and i grew up in a constant state of brown and white
and battles manifest

it’s raining in Brooklyn
all brownstones and bodegas
and you grew up one night in a basement
fires and teacups above your head

and desperate and foreign
a woman grows up
when there is no solace at home
and in a time of war
it’s impossible to entertain the complexities
but white and brown

in Brooklyn
and black and blue
beaten by the storms
weathered hands on weathered stones
no stranger to foreign
and desperate

but home
to battles never won
teacups and honesty broken
and cotton on my tongue
it’s raining in Brooklyn
and the leaves are fighting here
but armistice is crumbled and soft
cracked onto my tongue
broken open and manifest
it’s raining in Brooklyn
and homes are just stones and weather
nothing to fight for
foreign and migrant, i learned something today
it’s raining in Brooklyn

like juniper berries strung like bracelets from the limbs of my trees
i drop
falling
shiftless elbow elbow hip
and softness
transmuted into sky
into the color of steel
and i’ve pulled the blue out of it

won’t you join me on this caravan of falling
there are the pillows of winter laid out in front of me
and i’m sailing down the asphalt
from the golden fruitstands and thunderstorms of september’s breakfast

that simple
it’s poetry
for my family
for my lover
for my friends
poetry
shiftless
less than a love letter
more than a prayer
the good news
you got it
it’s gotten
in the cool seamless cotton
of tomorrow’s blanket
yesterday morning’s
bacon and eggs.

coffee melting like a friendship
like earth
the rough spots
on my tongue
it’s something i can count on
it’s one thing i know
and although i crave it
my body needs it
and i teeter on the safety of addiction
i can count on it
it’s mine
like love letters to my friends
like bracelets of remembrance
between me and what i love
until bracelets fray
and drop away

i have invisible ocean here
and exhaust breath
and everything is broken down here.

i could try on life here
crawdads + mesquite
i could eat
red clay
here
all desperate and ridiculous

i could scoop up sky here
and blow it out
all the windows of my rooms

i could settle in here.
one foot sinking
one foot flying

i could fall in love with american dreams here
all broken and
run down
white lips
blue sky
i could jump off cliffs here
into an invisible sea
ocean crashing
over me
skull cracking
under me

this is where dreams throw out
circles of time
reincarnated
reincarnated
sometimes
desecrated
and a blue belly lizard licks his lips
and rolls over
just like they do
just like they always do
and always have
since ocean days
since primordial storms
since american dreams and antiquated promises
and broken and run over
one of my me’s
could be here
all season long
all august long
dying and dying
and watching waves
searching for shells
self, mother, wife, daughter
shells in the sand.

between no name and meek
i thought about you
picked at my cuticles
and busied myself with the left-side moon

at rifle i hit a dust storm
which lasted until silt
splayed across my eyelids
on this seaside of the mountains
and you’re over there and i’m over here
thinking about whiling away the winter here

locked into a camper trailer
i could pack myself down under the arch of red
and imagine i never knew you
pretend it’s winter two years ago
and i am so sweetly fulfilled by your absence
and not lacking

lattice slats
shadow my view like you
in light in dark
crisscrossing my summer
if you’re not too busy being the sun in my sky
will you be the flowers in my garden
you’re taken root in my earth
i know that the seasons will change
i know that the seasons will change
i will clip the pieces of you that are wilted
you will find solace on the sea
but the roots will still be
dormant but deep
they will seep
into the sands here
outside my trailer
between my junk pile
my burning tires on my left
my burnt out neon on the right

but i just passed meek
i’m in the cradle of the desert now
the desert that rocked me softly into adulthood
and burned me brutally through my adolescence
the desert
with the moon
the cliffs
the little candle in my trailer window
i will burn here
my skin will change forever
and it will have something to do with you
no shedding can change that
it’s July and i’m burning
burning until the ashes of my fingertips
fall into the soft desert sand

it’s meek and no name
and that’s who i want to be
friendless
in a trailer with the howling
and the sand
to blow my ashes through
i want the bluff i’ve been
to see
the dry riverbed reflected
in the moon’s watery gaze
first dark then light
crisscrossing my winter
on this flatbed trailer
where i lay my remains
to whisper my dreams to the moon
to speak of heartaches just soft enough
so the coyotes don’t hear
so that the wolf at the door
of my January trailer
doesn’t sing to me
of twenty-six years of heartache
doesn’t vomit ashes of meek into my garden

it’s just that it’s midnight
and i’m somewhere between you and me
and the moon is pouring ashes through my fingertips
turning the mountains into a dust storm
and it’s not January
and the arches in the snow are just like
the latticework of
you across me

i’m sweating in July
no home but my garden
my burning tires cradled in the desert sky
no wolf
no whispers
just a rifle
and i’m thinking
it’s a good day to die
ashes
sand storm
moon.
it’s a good day to die