A LETTER TO MY UNBORN DAUGHTER REGARDING PANERA
Dear Daughter / I am eating dinner at Panera by myself / I am embarrassed about that but I am having a fine experience / The last time I ate here I got really mad / I made us all get out of the car / I threw my shitty salad in the grass
There are mostly tourists here / there is also a blind girl / she is eating from a giant loaf of bread / there are crumbs all over her face / there is no way to tell her this
The girl next to me is talking to her childhood dog on the phone / yes / I think the dog is about to die / she is saying goodbye to it / such a good dog / its name is Valentine
Panera has these homing devices for delivering food / not buzzing plastic discs / this is a Global Positioning System that tracks you down and delivers you your shitty soup / A human delivers it / Someday you will experience the drudgery of this
No matter what anyone tells you / you have a choice to eat alone in a sticky booth covered in crumbs / plastic silverware covered in plastic wrap / there exists a utensil called a spork / invented for such uses as eating food similar enough to slop
My dear daughter / if I am to tell you anything important / it is that the world is full of shitty salads and shitty soups / strangers talking their dogs to death / Mark my words / I never want a single baby to witness any of this / If I could have it my way / I would walk backward / bring you to the end of the woods / sing you to life til the sun dies.
WOLVES IN THE TRIANGLE
For CA Conrad
The white concrete
a hatch a freight-
elevator closes
like a mouth
why am I always afraid?
The rooms and
people in them
there is only hidden
geometry there is
nothing else
mouth-breath, yes
light-shadow
wolves in the triangle
I am so rarely alone.
CHANGE.ORG THE SKY
This is a petition to change the sky just at the edge where it meets the brick wall, at the exact moment I look up from my seat by the window. This is a petition to re-draw the branches and remove the wivvering flags from the flagpoles. This is a petition to recollect my memories and perform them in acts. I continue to have dreams about the people I’ve lost and that is both a blessing and a curse. This is a petition to illuminate only the blessing part of that. The part that is a chimney jutting into the clouds. The part that is a copper cock ablaze. The part of the long, silent walk home when your mind flattens the asphalt. This afternoon I am an astronaut. This afternoon I am a bell hitting another bell.