Parable of My Favorite Number
My favorite number’s
Sherlock’s favorite too.
Asked who bit the dust,
do your diligence
and buy a lottery ticket.
First number: splatter.
Second: a cashier’s stab
at the mystery height.
My favorite candy’s born
of bullet holes, but for
true stopping power
I choose Bazooka.
If only Alpha Pegasi
was my daughter’s name,
we’d make her a mobile
of paperback covers.
Watson says What
names are left now
that the star is dead?
In the Case of Gone-
Now-Never-To-Return,
the only evidence admitted
admitted to taking the cake.
My favorite number’s
a dumb shark, a bought
gangster holding sheep
knuckles and clubs.
Sheep knuckles are camels,
horses, goats and sheep.
Horse race means throw
and only count horses.
My favorite daughter
counted like this: tell me
what loves the snow
more than rain, tell me who
swims but never gets wet.
How To Do, What To Say
Dear silver-shadowed
believer, dear silver-
tongued messenger,
I have forgotten what
it means to use a finger.
Once I called it stick:
Once there was a way, and my legs wouldn’t move that way. Take
a sheet. Coat hangers do. And emerging from cornfields, so
beautiful in noise: that’s what I keep trying to be.
What do you call the part between
my nose and my mouth? The space
above my head? Behind my feet?
The place under the house?
The box? Answer machine?
Please, there must be some word today.
Some people can
with only one
foot on the ground:
I call it gambling, this way one foot goes up on its toes while the
other slides backward. They call it walking, but I call it getting out
of the peach pit. Doing tomorrow when today’s not done.
Please, there must be some word today.
I remembered, I never strayed—
I’ve been good; I only fell in one hole today.
And this is what I found:
Mittens and mittens. A book about animals.
I sat between two piles:
what has human features,
what doesn’t move like me.
I’m almost all the time
like a weathervane.
Paid the price,
held out both hands.
Sky Filled
This is how I hope
it ends: lawn chair
tied to broken
car, car
covered with foil.
Me there.
Something held
up by air, ribbons,
oil wells, shell
with painted woman,
some new kind
of cloud. I would
love to see a bird.
Seeing As
You know I was born /
Too gone to realize
–
Catch me on the crossroads— / Loaded
down with dice. / You’re
just a lost boy—
–
Tell me, fallen / Moon, how
the Devil / Got into
you, / How he hollowed
–
Let it do, / that broken plane. /
& I do,
& I do.
–
Take, take away
the bramble path— /
I write it a letter.
I hope you’re there.
–
Call me on a corner
phone / Slow & simple,
call me home— / I’ll carve out
your words & make
them my home.
–
I’ve a hole
out west, / I’ve my woman’s
name— / But my face is broken, /
& my body’s the same.
–
I’ll be the shallow if you’ll be
the deep. / & if it pulls
–
Fall down on it / If he calls
you / Down on it / & lift up
–
& my body
bodies against / What
held
–
Oh, noise— / I am gone missing
–
Find me outside
my trunk of cedar, /
& it will make you
see / The dove my cuff
–
Take down, take down