Wash Sea Out Of Hair And Drive
chapter 1
you’d think we’d find more
human teeth
on the street sometimes
the way every person loses so many
What Kind of Body
i told you
hackberry
is my favorite
you bit into it said
there is no flesh on this fruit
that was never the point
Understory or
A Pre-Surgical Examination Beneath Mesquite Archway
my footprints muted by dampened soil
fallen colors caught on leaves
and adjacent grass blades
i stop to push rocks and sticks aside the ground
expose a piece of mud i scratch a square
only then can i remember earth
and the ability to hold
only then can i remember space
and taking it
in absence and erasure
cottonwoods line banks
the disembodied speaker sounds
of wet slow shaking in a dance
with breeze
and in the distance even asters
hold umbels at stake
and odds with the wind
oh how that might feel
the blow of new wings
Anointed
sometimes with babies
no goodbyes from babies
closure terminal
porous vessel access sifter
holy and enclosure the queer
body holds babies but cannot hold
onto babies is not in spaces
is a childhood
far away from the gaying prayers
t h i s i s toy
so very toy the soft head
balcony is sky tower is sky above the crib
baby is sky and scrap er for city-baby crying baby
feet too soft to walk away, baby
to cast the movie infant with cheeks
and how that infant’s cheeks flushed
factory milk and breast-less hope
sorry baby happy baby fat baby
not your baby
i Felt Your Distance i
looked up the definition
of extraneous
but i meant
of extenuating
as in circumstance
/ validated excuse
this desert heat this harbor-less hole
four giant cinder cone anthills
mark my new street
that's how i know where to turn left
how to find my paint chipped casita
paved over flowing washes
re/named renamed
much much smaller ants
eat the compost pile by Theresa’s
who leaves stickers on old fruit skin
in my garden now stunted by shade soon
to be heatblown
just like that
last year no rain well
hardly
and i watch the spaces
for distance-hangs shrink
a n d shrink
sweat runs fast down
into my eyes all that salt
got confused for tears
we tear the calendar down
bullying
oh there’s confinement greater
the anticipation is harrowing still
this is no ode to a nightingale
who singest of summer in full-throated ease*
the bird outside my window is obnoxious as a jay
entangled in grey cloudcover
re/covering from last summer
missing monsoon and we plus her
shake down the clock of a momentary spring
*Ode To A Nightingale -John Keats
We Make a Space Every Month
pressing the mesh of our flesh together
to make sure it still fits (we know it does)
i whisper many breaths into your ear
with the word cherish on it
we both remember that back and forth
is to sew
I Drew an Infinity Sign Where an Ex Should Be
ghost ship R.I.P.
to the charcoal
you blacken
a night too solvent
to the lost
bodies
however formerly questioning existence
Daybook
I. see the creosote generational
the stomata scented
when the sky is so warm it
smooths
you
spend all day trying
touch from earth
II. tomorrow’s high
will be 109°
i’ll leave to garden
the chocolate maker’s house
i hand water seedlings
slow
the
transition into life
has a chance not to be consumed
/ drown
under mesquite tenants tend land
feeling the extents of the landlord’s
investment
feeling the lack of care one places
on structure
rented
III. mom says
you are so damn negative
no one thanks (girls)
for being realists
someone small purple Target dress maybe 7
tells Pony hey girl
can i have a turn
spinning
Pony in blue
answers two is too young to know
the liminal between
monsters and dreams
we wait for all the
noun’d kids of queers
to change back to
man names
a name becomes dead
only after you kill it
the process is haunting
as in
prepare to be haunted by ghosts for a very
long time this
internet age
the most searchable
thing we know together
new language youth create
is the seedling may we bring
water
The Way You Move Sentences
a big toothed you
takes me to Frys
latenight
makes me push the cart
makes me think i can find joy in grocery exhaustion
you angel
inside my body rest is momentarily forgotten
and this new coffee
brain in movement
who is he dancing
daily pieced and vibrant
remembering multitasking and nightlife
chasing water still
inside my mask the air circulates in whirls of garlic
keeps closure
over lipstick
i scribble cocktails and how to center clay
on the same blue-lined notecard
notice you free pouring green-eyed
talking through your hands unworded things
friday night there’s a neon party
for those who think Tucson pride isn’t dead
instead we play a death game
anti-survival around candle light i
am the big ex pro
wrestling with circumstance
finding patience and vice
of all the virtues one could choose
patience feels so
impractical
yes i know then this is the lesson
misgender cispeople
give the gift of humility
open carry
chapter 2
the virus is already
in us
and every
conversation
I. calling while trans
i say my name which is legally not
everything legal
dystopia too
is trending
i mean for real
how many apocalypse stories can i read in a week
II. the C word
twice
the cringe
see you next tuesday
do not touch
yonic waves
i was masked i was matter
floating
contagion
tent in your backyard
the your is to uncomplicate confusion
nothing is yours really
let alone
community
III. allure
man and big truck
pull up
briefs sag blood-stained
and empty pocket dick
opens door to pick-up
package flung and turns to see
big grin
pressed foot
on break
IV. touching objects
neutral temp
stronger the bottom is bound tightly in straw
the top becomes disorder
brittle kinked so
fragile
unyielding
My Fake Friend Tommy
said hey there does touch
live inside you did you stay inside all day waiting of rust
socks dried a roommate’s help a wet bleach rag a park stroll sit
another walk another walk 3 way friend video star remember thinking last week you were going to buy a record player
or put a weird ad out for a trade proposition about a record player
remember last week when people’s favorite thing to trade was money
remember this week when people’s favorite thing to trade is
still money
i have to drown people out
of my head in order
to write poetry now
how sick is that
Pothos Plant
they like you cause you’re hard to die
and here i am a house plant guy
pothos
i used to think
keeping plants confined / roots bound
out of sun’s warmth
away from pollination
away from being a part of
something bigger
is a trapping a
self-serving domination
again
i sit next to you
my favorite event of the year is virtual
i am unready
to charge this year’s passivity
solo / screened-in
unbecoming slideshow commemorates
adrenaline / mess / kiss
the rest-in-pieces
we
haven’t felt in so long
the adjacent heat of sweat
i have you not pothos
this is just where i’m at
like every other
basic office bitch
Distancing
i saw you today on social media
i saw you through a screen door
i saw you today as we drove by parked
empty streets bellowing loudly
exactly nothing either of us say
The Doves Throated Hum
seeps
under screen
true i too
don't know how to survive this place
without water
wind our
original pollinator shape this
and every cliff’s edge
awaiting scatter
a line already written
as poison offered freely to the hard hat
on man in crawl space withering on belly
mistaken serpent in day labor role
if i blow a dandelion your
general direction
who will shift the coffin to the left every spring
so weeds may too
refuge?
Can You Hear Me When You’re Older?
of soaking glochids
from calloused palms
tending macrocosmos in tiny body form
emotionally themself children
a felt and momentary constant
what are children to mourn but the exact infront
you begged for a cookie to tears
took a bite lost interest what
is singular stability to a young mind fed bigger as better
another full plate to the next
then i too vanish as you wish
the dog that barks at the blank canvas
sees blue in suspension
yes time who
moves both fast and slow
is ghost
If Not You Then Who
is it cruel how trans people stay young
stay pubescent sometimes multiple times
and die instead of age
it’s encapsulated youth
i feel you thinking about dying when i touch you
i'm fine with cruel being the wrong word
so tell me
A Space Between
your love
store bought broth
your stumble over names
of plants
of places
of me
imagine a mother
not learning
her own child’s name
big voice high heat
you think bladderpod looks like a ballsack
you grimace imagine
being so long in this world held back
in fear of going forward
in terror of opening
learning something
or losing everything
chapter 3
in narrow beaks
i blewyou up
you stayed squishy
the river’s tide was the opposite direction
than any other day
you deflated again and cis people were there and the sky stayed grey
and instead of making out we paddled pink sandals
upstream
Wetlands off Pacific Coast Highway
the birds did make
did those
lines
in sandy muck mud under
bridge we walk
the sky greys
under clouds and a softness
this is one of your favorite spots near
the stolen land i grew to
leave sandpipers tip forward
a bow to
creatures they nibble
in narrow beaks
i had to take a call on the video phone
by coastal sage brush
work and response everywhere you are
oughta be working i t f ee l s
to be valid
you fill in
a place
important
enough to always be a visitor
the video phone allows the disembodied distance
of visitation of importance
and never in full
context
of wetlands i
mourn this
We Met on Trucksluts
LDRs are falsely trending
we cracked the algorithm barely
fed a monstrous mouth of
an impersonal internet internal
you aglow and heart
an ode to hand holding and leftovers
standing in the web unwaiting
no one shouted i love gays no one knocked
about the takeout no one txted running late just you
you and me at cliff's edge over sea
hiding shy faces
momentarily saved
this once
plus
this
moment we sat in a river brief
and filled our backs with leeches
it is still unfortunate
there’s not another name for birthdays
this unholy thing
Fever Dream
i awoke
to tiny footsteps pounding
a hard shelled beetle sitting upright in the palm of my hand
made to safely fall
high terminal velocity
through all the angered emails
your name a punch
and still i wonder
say we never met?
a creature who survives ice ages
but cannot turn itself over
stays hidden in the pipes
play poly pretend parts private
play poly
pretend parts
private
Remember When Owls
dirt won’t spill
secrets
it’s not their fault
poor owl
as in exploited widely undr capitalism
not as in cruel or wicked insufficiency
like everyone else
owl flaps the alien feather
beat
and from ridge top
a soft coup
echoed
forgive me for the days
capitalism felt so good
one side drowns
while the other
dies of thirst
Dry Mouth
underneath with you and plans
at your sleeping side
staying afloat and
sportblown
tubular/sticky
in the toss of you/r
wave-legs restless lay
lilies power-blooming on a lake still
this is our year
still all to shield behind
cocooned in softsweet solar flare tinsel
hanging interim
of all your room
dreams atrophy
brittle broom
lost magic
sunsucked and swept
in bright-heavy doom
fuse metal together
tiny black birds spitting the fuck up
setting down layers of a thing
only other no-birds call
nest i see us sleeping sure
here now i see
us merely aging
in the same bed
IRL
warmth from a trash fire
pretty pretty flames new
perfume on your nightgown
ablaze in silk smokey reds
those long tongues with terrible secrets
dropping lines in chat forums
we met on a platform
then i bought platforms
pink unexpecting
something
justborn and vulnerable
soft and without eyes
I. Rockdaisy Buds
that science in your stomach moon
peeking through night watch
this occupied land to camp between
us fresh aster blanketed re/ground
sprained hxstories our mourning
rockdaisy finally woke up finally
went outside and sees
the tall mushroom sculptures saved
from the trash said trash
is/always art i shit
outside because someone was busying
the bathroom and i blame it
on the dog
II. Rockdaisy Blooms
rockdaisy takes
a sudoku book from the dollar store
sits with tea and burnt toast
feels idleship like kid pictures on the fridge
rockdaisy finds a nail and hammers
a dime-sized mirror called ‘couples’
on the pantry 5 packages
came to the doorstep 4 other people
and 3 breads popped up from the toaster
but 2 shared 1 slot
connecting sides still soft
a deck of cards sat loudly
rockdaisy you dog
you started to shuffle
III. Rockdaisy on Coast the seeding
vacationing in-
visible war zone is tricky
business for relaxing
beach views real
estate the very sky sleeping above
sea the ostensible
infinity lineless endings
there is a horizon rockdaisy imagines
feels slighted by the internet's conviction
and way the ocean is so hopelessly
a scorpio in ether unrelenting
rockdaisy refuses to write
another poem about the sea
knows there is no way
to be in you
accept possible drowning
halophytic thirst rockdaisy
puts a fistfull of sand into drymouth
rockdaisy chew chew
had to write back
you about collision
the cleanup and slow peeling of flesh
sunbleached bones
exiting this life rockdaisy
said no.
for the first time
first time
saw sand chafing in eye sockets but thought you might
finally stop and finally wanted that
tasted blood and salt like possibilities
rockdaisy finally wanted that
it’s okay not to be working all the time it’s okay not to be working all the time it’s okay not to be working all the time
drink the nice wine first it’s okay not to be working all the time it’s
not to be
working
drink the nice wine first
not to be working
not to be working
not to be working
not to be working
not to be working
and the instructions
wash sea out
of hair and
drive away