Newsprint

A., look at the heights
of this goose flesh,
the clamorous feathers
flared broadly and froze
up as though by ice,
quills erect as scared
soldiers. Let me be your
peacock while the sun
still leeches in the glass.
Gun and fold these
interminable mounds.
Find I’ve not an egg
to boil (not a head
to mount on your wall),
just this slush, this mire,
these screams slumping
across a pale limp page.
Wince your dreaming day
through and molt the old
maxim to sleep on it. Sleep
on the lost plumage and eye
a future in leather and wool,
quivering, ready to pluck.

Trick (Not for Laura)

Massachusetts cut into tiny toothpicks, splinters
stacked to a pire and set to flames.
The taste of Massachusetts. Its toxins. Give me

the pricks of your driftwood. Burn me steady
until I slough. It is a leather skin. It is a parchment you
can char. I asked if this is what you Massachusetts

should be: the thing that blazes, smokes stars, wrestles
with the innocence of its sweat, the wetness
that burns me. What can I do friend. Can I drown

in you. Can I drown from away. Must the burn complete.
There was a sun I thought to shine under. Believe
I am the only one with words. Believe when light casts

off the mirror it is onto the face of Sarah and no one.
Yes this is a burn. Yes the daylight burns me.
Massachusetts my will is to burn us the sky.

King of Id

Massachusetts you can't pollinate in the mouth
like the other states. Roll out your clumsy tongue
and pave over your pocked roads. Let's not be dumb

about these highway holes. New York orphaned me
as the ward of the tower winds and it's a long fall
to the kin under its water. Everything I can't remember

is an ancient crime scene. And now Massachusetts
you want me to start a family. New York is aware
there is concrete below and wood above. New York says choose.

I'm sorry I sold my land in you Massachusetts.
But you're only a slow train ride, some cold water
a place to rest my head.