Cluster Of People Lying Down Group Shot

half buried in a cucumber field
in Sadaa, Yemen

conspiratorial rambling, the rationale —
I've edited out a lot

This photo
taken in 1994
shows a starving woman at a makeshift clinic in Ruhango, Rwanda
where thousands took refuge

We showed people the moon,
Jupiter,
Venus,
the Orion Nebula

Shine On –
soft, enchanting glow!

we move fast through country lanes,
we sing songs to calm the collective tension,
flags painted

remote data
could not be fetched

I wasn't sure where the second groundhog was hanging out that evening
and it was getting late
so I decided to just take a walk
back the farm road to see

Star Clusters in Scorpius

police advances
a cluster of youth

my thriving vegetable garden

Just The Morning

I’ve always liked to sleep with books in my bed
It’s probably true that some of their knowledge is absorbed through this simple intimacy
The mind of the writer, thoughts, words, the hand, connected to the pen or key,
the ink to the press, the paper, the publisher,
the runway, the carton, the slip,
The coffee, the spoon in the saucer, retail,
connected to the paper, the cover, the hand, my sleeping skin

For someone who came alive on the internet, computers sure feel hard and cold
keys sure feel tappy
My long natural nails sure do establish a complication
Loud sound
separate from soft scratches
Coated on the paper, coded on the page

We learned to speak sex with a delay
Identity with a chorus
Arms and legs could not resist
Sitting, tapping self, walking, seeing self, sleeping self
How a version

I wonder about a chat room that could smell like a shower
the aftermath of steam and shampoo

~*It’s hard to tell because the nails are small, but the polish is reflective*~

January Late In The Decade

unfortunate me when I’m happy

I just want to perch as a little ball at the peak

a doughnut covered in sugar—

I’ve ridden this trolley up

let’s see how I can take it down

I hate feeling full

I don’t want a body full of beans

I’m mad at their softness

concerned with lines, blind

reliably aware of faults

full of dust, powdered

to pop and swallow, bald in libraries

The winter when the pipes burst

Screaming into the store downstairs

Panicked, the man entered our apartment

Amanda in the bathtub watching Netflix

the tub was full of icy water, clear in a yellow way

We were going to meet up

maybe get some mac and cheese

But he fell in love, and maybe he could love two girls at once, but more likely he’s marrying this one, likely in the next few years

Libraries are warm places

they are open, but more often ignored

the infinite other feels different when there’s not someone perceptible encoded in bits

the peak looks different

the dough, I must admit, flatter

the sugar, I must admit, sour

this beloved string is my dance partner

this string, beloved, is an empath

this stone is from a shop in Oakland, 

but still it is black and smooth

heavy, really, so to invoke the middle of the forest perfectly

riding the edgy internet party

queer in Crown Heights

dosed in color

the living future, new moon

Stop, everybody just stop, and throw your hands up

and stop asking how to be alive inside an institution

Institutions are old. The powerful crumble—

Gender is over. If I say it is— so what?

I could tear out every page here, put them in a pile in the middle of the room, on that table—

What are you afraid of? What’s the joke

—and somebody, most likely, would be too afraid to press their hand down into the pile until it started to sweat and pool and run

dampen the words they could turn to black wet goo to dollop on each other’s noses to bite down hard on

I would laugh I’m pretty sure everyone would laugh

We’d all laugh—

and then when the room exploded we could still blame it on a terrorist, because we would know the truth

I hope that the ashes of pages would fall upon Brooklyn

Everyone come out you bats, look up!

Cough if you need to

the embers can get hot, and they most certainly are not healthy.

I wish this stabbing would stop

daggers, wishing, caught between reverence and childish knowing

realizing, freakishly, that the boundaries are invisible

these are reasons why I defend the past as the most direct route to this moment

immediate as a needle in your veins, pre-AIDS immediate

a needle to your veins

clean

safe and pure

wholesome experimentation does not equal death

Killing

The grass was alive and it prickled my lips close to the earth, with care
The moth was anxious and nature-white
I didn't grab it but my fingers
Rubbed easily on the body
Tremoring
Falling to dust, coating me, green, softly

Flame

No one wants to admit that I can have a feeling with a red pixel
Wrap my heartstrings around it down
In back where caverns grow
Black black
Beyond and all
Passed, one by one
In circles, summers, sometimes

History At Dinner

The smartest computer was a person hiding inside a machine
It had the shortest and slowest distance
To make between sophisticated decisions

On The Eve Of My Anniversary

Links can be chains
And chains as a prison
visions
flicker falsely
connection benevolent.
Links that let us spy
That flood us.
Swagging the promise that we can touch each other

Promise us you're not anonymous
Computer, take my hand and tell me you know them
They
A yellow circle
Press
And bend
Link and flood and fill