Senior Prom, May third,  nineteen fifty-two.The lights lowered for the last dance and our shadowed first kiss, kept like a flowerunfading. Arthur’s Swing Band mellowed, to spotlight the husky crooning of Miss LouParsons, “Goodnight, sweetheart,” at the hour of wishing: “In my dreams tonight I’ll hold you,” as we’ve held each other from that midnight…

Perhaps the hairpin pupil of a child’s eye,is where all the lost things go to hide,burrowed back in the folds,of underdeveloped matter,in a squishy skull,soft down hair spattered,in our moments of regression,it’s shame that burns our eyes,and blinds our senses,So then all things lost,live in the foggy memory of our evolution,the grey landscape we can’t…

here lies a dead man a bad man a sad handto hold his weeping bride he was good (or he tried)kept her happy (satisfied)but hear this, when alivemama wished that he’d die burnt frying panleader of a klan(as if i give a damn)said that he had a planto make a better land(a cleaner land! unblemished…

–  for Charla Two brown eyes, framed by spraysof pine needles, stared, blinked.   The fawn lowered her head. This is a once-in-a-life, she thought,as she lifted the camera to her eye.The camera strap rustled, and the deer bolted.  Her mama quickly herded heraway. In the viewfinder the focusingdots nervously flickered trying to find those eyes.…

“Let her strike me, it relieves her heart… it’s better that way.” –Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky I’ll show for her my trick And yet will come the scolding.I will endure her kick For the prize she is withholding. She’ll pet my spotted mane For sitting near in silence;I’ll speak one word untame And surely…

Butterflies only live for two weeks and the fruit fly lives for a day. I’ve never left the country. Snails can sleep for three years and shrimps keep their hearts in their heads. I don’t like my name. I detest my smile. And the footprints on the moon will live for a hundred million years.…

Filed in this black box of smoky negatives, parents, children, grandparents,aunts and uncles all gussiedup for Easter, the wornporch steps and sagging,moldy gutters behind them. And the toothy birthday girl, the erstwhile boyfriends in bow ties, the fresh shine of a large-mouthed bass, Christmas smiles set glowing by bubble lights. And I am the one…

After his divorce from Aphrodite,Hephaestus, lame god of the forge,re-wed Aglaea, goddess of beauty.She was the youngest of the Three Graces,and it was her job to attend to Aphrodite. Conspicuous in garment of the groom,Hephaestus paces the halls, limping.Aglaea, gargling in the bathroom,will take several more hours primping.Heph slaved at his forge so she’d be…

There are those who carry worlds within, walking obituaries,unable to place,unable to recollect,names which might codicil reason.Their aversions and tendenciesall cross-haired into a mad conglomerate,at sixes and sevens, they wander.Arms splayed,to catch walls and deflect voices,screaming reminders of who they were,before they left,before they leapt,God said they wouldn’t make it into heaven.And there are those,stein-eyed…

i just wanted to say sorry,for kicking the legs on your chairout from under youwhen you were sitting down for dinner, for holding the pillow down on your facewhen you lay in bed to sleep. i hope you don’t mind my apologizing,for cutting the cold water in your showerin the hopes that you might burn…