11

When the hunger disapates, what's really left?

You can smile for a minute, sure, 

Let your eyes crinkle at the sides, somehow

Speaking for you, reassuring with teeth.

In the end, it's about the fingernails, 

Not the teeth, clawing back from underground,

From under the water and soil, the mole hill

Stamped down by sheep and primitivity, the fear. 

You're a chameleon, they say. Changing from anger

To laughter quicker than clothes, they say. 

But don't forget to bear the pearly whites, to cope,

They say. Don't forget to clip the nails to the stub,

To watch the blood drip down the sides. 

Does anyone understand language grows on the side

Of a hill? That it grows under the skin, behind 

Gums and the white spots? When we speak,

We open the cords of the back throat, unleashing 

The sheep to the field, left to the mercy of hooves. 

10

This piece is playing with what German word order looks like in English. 

Although he sometimes an asshole be can, 

Sometimes thinks he of me or you

And we feel ourselves lucky and hurt

Yet nothing can worse be, than understanding 

The rays of the sun and how they into

The deep pores of our skin burn. 

Because he us knows and whatever

In the morning slowly in front of the rooster

Passes. You smoke. When smoke I, feel I 

Myself not pride but a so deep ache, coursing

Though my blood and my marrow. The valley 

Calls to me. It screams sweet nothings

And waves me in pity over. 

9

Someone told me of Icarus,
Flying with wings of wax
And feathers, curious.

Did you burn yours
With cigarettes or bridges?

Icarus landed in an ocean,
Lapped up by women, sold
To the sex trade, probably.

Now, he goes by Jerome,
Sits on a park bench playing
Chess with himself.

If no one sees you fall,
Where do you land?

8

You tell me with your hands,

And I agree for a moment, 

That slow is smooth, but nothing

Satisfies like an entire chicken

Or cooking the rooster outside

The door. You know, the alarm

Every morning. 

That plucky thing talks a lot,

Proving that he's worth something

Somewhere, proving that behind 

The feathers, we're the same--

Aching for someone to know 

We're awake and tossing around.

But does anyone care, really?

One day, we'll find the feathers,

The remnants of a reality that flew 

Past the branches like a bike

In the rain and understand, for 

A moment, what he called out 

Each morning--what it means

To really smell the sun up close. 

7

To the woman lying on her back, right hand turning purple

When you turn to smile for a minute
at your husband, who's just barely
made it back for the tinfoil blanket
to wrap around your body and tucked
his bike, and yours, around the corner
of the park, I ache to jump the curb,
to grab your twisted fingers and drive off.

It's not my fault, really, not wanting
to be here. I wasn't there when my mom
slid off her sled the wrong way, bashed
her kidney into a rock, peed blood
for five days. Nor was I there
when my grandmother slashed her calf
open while fishing knee deep in
a Montana river. But when I stand there,
listening to the story, I understand fluidity.

I choose language over relation, finding
the jumping tongue sharper than the snap
of my mother's fingers after I gaze sideways
for a half second too long. Sometimes,
I want to strangle Babel. To wrap my jacket,
like the tinfoil around you, and unleash
a flurry of Pitbulls and spit, listening
for a scream. But what would that sound like?

6

Somewhere between the fourth shot of Jager
and a beer, everything disappears
down the hole of a yellow straw. One day,
barriers will fall like Berlin in the 80s and
I'll understand day drinking. How sitting
at 4 pm sipping means productivity.

While watching ice clink, you complain
about unripe blueberries, the cold
and a remnant of a summer yet to come.
My eyes squint tighter. The woman
with the tray says numbers I want to read,
repeats herself again and again. Almost angry.

But who's angry here? The woman or me,
the one unable to pull a series of letters,
jumbled together like monkeys in a barrel.
Somehow, I think when I pull away
from the bar at the end of the night,
day drinking is the least of my problems.

5

Yesterday, in a garden with a duck castle,
I sat and watched couples soak vitamin d
and each other. Like the mallard,

who chased his mate up and down
a stream, waddling through leaves after her,
taking flight only after peering over the weeds,

searching. To the left, a Turkish 20
something with a blonde, smiling with eyes,
stared into small talk. His jacket, slightly

unbuttoned. His hand, resting on her right
thigh. They laughed. To the right, a man
grabs the bottom of a white dress, says

something I'm too far away to hear, falling
into a forever locked in a moment on a bridge.
I'm a voyeur. These scenes bite my eyes,

remind me I'm just close enough to grab,
but not quite have. Sure, snapshot and let it
flutter into oblivion. We're just Pedal boats

on a stream, sticking briefly on a branch.
We're sucking up too much water,
overflowing with language.