HEATSTROKE BEBOP

Great chariot of Apollo’s fire,

please speed

up your layover. Is there 

more time

than there used to be before—

or is it 

only passing slower?

Rooftop of June 

and height of afternoon as 

languid and narcotic 

clouds drift by like belly-up fish

and baked bees labor 

in the clover drunk on nectar's straight 

concentrate of summer.

Red rover red rover, I already 

have a hangover, so

let’s just hurry up and get this 

apotheosis over.

WRINGING MY FINGERS

It's a method 

of protection; 

a display of penitence;

the vaguest 

supplication, sarcastic 

but exact—

and I'm terrified 

because it's 

been a long time 

since I've done this—

and by "this," I mean 

stopped being "I."

*

These hands are so
stubborn, they have minds
of their own. 

When they sign, they've 

been known 

to send some 

very cryptic messages

which I'm certain 

I never
intended them to send.

*

There are times when heaven 

throws down a rope,

when these blackeyed and 

terrorized digits 

grab hold. 

Then, there are times 

when it feels 

like they're tweaking 

and combing every fold

of my brain like a rake 

just to try 

to figure out who 

was just speaking. 

POETIC PRACTICE

Draw a perfect circle 

freehand. 

Notice 

what has happened. 

POEM ABOUT LIFE

Like with your 

refrigerator,

only once it spoils 

do you notice 

what was in there. 

ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF MY NEAR-DEATH

I flinch from the memory

like a hand from a hot stove—

one big mad twisted engine, 

no headlights left—

as if to prove, 

via hand-eye coordination, 

that hunting was a sport,

and I was just a second-

stringer, excised from the team. 

Even in the silence 

of midnight blindness, 

I cannot bear to listen 

to the black box message

and so must cut it short. 

Biography isn't destiny—I know 

that's what it'd say. But history 

isn't nothing, either—at least 

not anymore. 

OUTSIDE CHANCE

You first wake 

to a morning both 

mild and gray.

it might not rain on your side 

of the burg, they say. Or

 
it might pour the cats

and dogs of your life

before the end of the day. 

Either way—better to grab 

the slicker of your wonder

before you sashay 

out the door on your way 

to life’s work.

It’s so uncomfortable 

to wear (stiflingly hot 

and a garish lemon yellow).

And you're probably not even

going to need it, 

you declare—but 

then again: you may.

ENLISTED MAN

You don't have to be 

an egomaniac 

or sign a lifetime contract.

What starts you on the warpath 

to writing every day 

is that any poem might 

be your best;

but what keeps you there

as a hapless conscript 

long after the romance has left

is this Howitzer 

aimed from the end 

of a halftrack: every poem 

might be your last.