shirley temples
the kids are out catching fireflies

when are we most scared of the
things that we have seen in life?





you want an old fashioned?














The pile of leaves my husband
had raked in a pile to burn was

still there, and so I flew into it
and rolled around with the bugs

falling into my shirt and my mouth

it was worms who tasted
like a bloody mary on celery


Sam Z. is nine months and a few days
pregnant and ready to burst at the seams


sleeping on a couch, feeling like gram god

smoke's architect,

the windows steamed from all the
drunk kids screams downstairs


july 4th is the day my
sweetheart was born



an old lady at the palmer lounge

told me that old fashioneds were
the first drink to be called a cocktail

whatever that means

I worked for a while as a valet parker
and then got fired from bartending

for the reason most people do

melt a sugar cube with drops of water,

& a splash of bitters while the bourbon
layers at the bottom and a cherry,

one of the red ones in the sugar jar

gets smashed to shit in another glass
and then thrown in a tall frosted one



we had people over for a dinner party
I checked the ham in the oven with the girls

the men sat around the table drinking


pimentos reminded me of brains


although I set a place for myself


in a clothes-strewn closet with
a black lockbox in one corner


gelatin is made out of hooves

cigars are made out of leaves

getting a huge pile of jello or aspic
together and hitting it with a hammer

seeing shards of gelatin

reminded me of dissections

not surgery, not self-mutilation,

I could never forget dissections
it's ritual like getting your wisdom
teeth removed or a chess game



both require a market, discipline,


someone who is the only christian
that they trust behind the wheel of
a car or the throttle of an airplane

my hair was pinned up and I walked
into the backyard shoeless hoping

for the grass to tickle my feet

but they were too cold and the
grass was already wet with dew



everyone had weird names
at the dinner party, not hippy

names, its the name's

trail slime










I try to think about what life was like before
but I don't remember, the time would then

be totally blank

not absent, but blank like drunk
eyes that just aren't recording.







I was outside of my body, last night
when sometimes I think I lost myself

but not in the bad way,

not from cheap or weird vodka


finally communing with nature
floating like a graveyard in the clouds

nothing like childbirth in the movies



in assigning , new york,

she's standing on the moon and crying
until a drop hits the sun and puts it out




"..."



































































the brady bunch
he has nowhere to go
so he drives around

he has nowhere to go
so he drives around















































*************