Lunar Flora

You are the sweat on the brow of a mother in her thirteenth hour of labor. You are the fickle fingers of a child grazing a splintery fence midday. You are a sixteen-syllable sentence uttered by a woman with beautiful lips. You are the thousands of end-of-the-world kisses in constant exchange at each terminal. You speak and rain falls upward. You blink and butterflies dissolve. There are shells of people out there trying, each day, to become an atom in the vast dance of your movements, to seek the mode in the range of your emotions. You are bottled nebulae with a cork that is waiting to pop.
You are lunar flora: prickly pear cacti which fill craters steeping in a celestial marinade hailing from the Horsehead. And should you stand beneath the sun for too long, the land which surrounds you would recede into the dark recesses from whence it came, and the soft luminescence of your eyes would suffice to lead your way.

Subduer

You placate with

your palms, your

fivefinger tactile

psalms

And extinguish

with your lips:

two slivers of

cowardly koi fish

The Performer II

Into a tree you carved
a message with a knife

"IF FACES ARE TOPOGRAPHICAL

YOURS IS A RAVINE

SITUATED SOMEWHERE EAST

OF MY COMPLACENCY

WEST OF WHERE I DREAM

NORTH OF ALL THINGS WHICH ARE NOT

BUT PAINSTAKINGLY SEEM"

And you walked back to your car
dead leaves flying backward

beneath your feet
you drove all the way home with
the emergency signal on
singing the same song
your parents played
the night you were conceived

While You Knelt

What is the history

of regret?

It doesn't want to talk about

that. Trust it, that was a mistake,

it should have known better.

And if, say, that magical

memory jettison corporation

from that one film

with the blue-haired girl

actually did exist, yeah,

it would most likely

opt for that. Instead,

its head is reduced to

a pendulum inclined

to encumber a neck

too frail to support it.

Sure, it had fun,

but it's a Catholic, see,

and guilt became the

new pink as soon as John Paul

tied a rose-hued

chiffon scarf 'round the eyes

of his subordinate,

whispered redemptive

prayers into their ear- "Pretend

it's your favorite

candy," five times,

for posterity.

The Performer I

An octave prickles

the tongue which

cradles it and

buds bust into bloom

as the need for

projection is expressed

with a single

coo

Yesterday failure fulfilled you

lips lubricated with glue

the thousand-headed

monster of the crowd

lies ravenous

its eyes cast on

you

Count the Colors

O you

with plaid-clad

residual cherubs on your cheek

and pastel-planked

suburban scripture

How often does one pass

a leashed mut

on that stretch mark on the thigh

of lady lone star

In what manner do you display

allegiance to your

ever faithful

drag queen?

In what vein?