The Bedside Book of Quarterly Returns
The geese seek magnetic north
and can’t be bothered
by unbalanced lines
or floodlights.
Sometimes the blackest night
makes it clear
that the baptism did not take;
something other than
the holy spirit moistened
my polyester slacks.
Every day trash and leaves
blow into my neighbors’ yards.
Widows pause at their windows
waiting like magazines
with questionnaires.
Millionaires gather at the edge
of town like gooseflesh
invading the set
of a pornographic film.
After all that money invested
and all those miles flown,
there’s only an over-lit
picture of naked people
throwing brown shoes
into the sky.
Wednesday
We could have dinner on Wednesday.
To dine on Thursday
would be like asking
a beautiful woman’s
sister to dance.
By Friday I will lie in ruin if this continues.
Walking home late Saturday.
Arriving home Sunday morning.
But Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday:
first a thought,
then the whole of my thinking,
now the mechanism by which I think.
A day to answer the million-
dollar question:
Where have you been hiding
yourself, Glen Franklin?
Well, I followed this guy with a pipe
and a trench coat for a while,
convinced he was Mitch Ryder.
I sat and ate falafel
while reading a Metro Times.
Then you walked in,
which made it feel more like Tuesday.
You were never full of woe,
but always full of whoa . . . dude . . .
Dead Letter Bureau
1.
I imagine my own pine box.
I talk to Jesus and smack mosquitoes
and drink a beer
and write a letter
to President Taft.
After a while, I get this sudden urge to collect
shoes from roadsides and highways.
2.
The medicine trapped inside my sister’s blood
thrashes about before it fades.
The house in shambles.
Her body, a ragdoll
that has fallen out of fashion.
3.
I imagine a place where the pain
can get no worse,
where the only surprises
fit in decorative boxes
no bigger than postage stamps.
4.
The shoe slowly poisons the foot.
Dead Letter – page 2
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5.
The naked bodies must be inspected,
then destroyed.
They have no place
here, unlaced for wicked schoolboys
or art collectors
who didn’t love them enough
to risk getting caught.
6.
I ought to know better by now,
but I believe these words will reach you.
I will be waiting for your response.
I won’t move from this place.