sleep. He was curled naked
in the corner of the room

with chardonnay and two
marlboro cigarettes.

Where have you been? He
drinks, says, there is

wine here—
don’t you have a taste

for it? I say, have
you no decency?

the mosquitoes tip-toe
around me, out of habit
and knowledge—
they see me lumbering

around, around front porches
smoking and weeping
intermittently.
they hear me coming

when i am two
dreamscapes away, my
breath-rate is a pair
of golden cymbals

clashing a steady
lovesickness,
a muggy mid-morning
the crickets spend chirruping

about the coming dawn,
mosquitoes fly hungry,
breezes fill the night’s pockets
with cool change

and the hour is life-full,
as will be the next,
the next,
every hour coming and going

with its veins running blue fire,
dammed up in certain
pivotal places, space enough
for Love to be won

and lost, and wars, and wealth,
and invisible moments
waiting expectantly for sunrise
in sweltering Arkansas summer.

i have heart that
brims drumming blood,
the mosquitoes keep me company
until i can see

them clearly in the silver morning,
and thereafter
into golden daylight—
the dreaming and waking instant.

Be careful of how the night moves into morning.
When things have gone right the day opens and closes,
one calendar square checked off and done with.
When something is wrong, when you’ve drunk too much
Or had a fight over love or lost money,
The night runs into the morning in sick streaks
Like the fluids of a dog run over in the last block.

Be careful of uniforms of any color,
of glass doors with initials painted on them,
of people always willing to go last.
Be careful of workers who have their own desks.
Be very careful of people whose young are hungry
and have large faces, of days set aside
for the celebration of national independence,
of those who are neither lonely nor afraid.

Be careful everywhere. This is a world—
what?—divided. Not as they say divided.
Think of this: running around the planet,
along the equator exactly, an iron fence;
half the population of the planet
stands on either side and shakes the bars
screaming to be let out, to be let in.

(From “Notes from the Agent on Earth: How To Be Human” by Miller Williams)

but of the children
say only this:

they have ten fingers and toes
each of them
and brains.

or a brain
or a mind
or the thin meta-membrane
that connects the two:

instigates
neighborhood games
captures red bandanas
touches dry ice
on a swelter summer day
calls up
hurricanes in the gulf

and licks oil
from the gash
in the planet’s skin.

say only this
of the little ones:

they have popsicle stains
ringing round their lips
and tough teeth
and burns on their fingertips
from the block of CO2—

each of them touched it
in turn
and told the next kid in line
to step up and
just do it already.

queries related to the supervision, application, efficacy, and/or authority of the hereunder may be addressed to the Holy Office for the Regulation and Prevention of the Lusts of the Flesh. please include a $10 processing fee and a self-addressed, stamped envelope to insure a speedy reply.

the trickle of fingertips
from clavicle to navel
is hereby unlawful,

the exchange of kisses
beneath bedsheets, the wanton
wandering of lips from cheekbone
to cheekbone to neckline to
earlobe to underarm and thereunder
is hereby unlawful,

the placement of smooth shaven
thighs and calves upon
other such legs, or upon
otherwise fur-given appendages,
hairy legs of men or women
is hereby unlawful,

the intentional or
unintentional contact
of skin or other tissue
with the breast of a woman,
the sternum of a man
is hereby unlawful,

the possession
of erect nipples
in the absence of inclement weather
is hereby unlawful,

the words dick
and pussy
and their various manifestations
are hereby unlawful,

the use of the word fuck,
within and around
the context of orgasm
is hereby unlawful,

the orgasm,
the little death,
the tiny bubble bursting
into the big bang
is hereby unlawful,

the friction of the tongue
upon the jewel of a woman
or the glory of a man
is hereby unlawful,

the penetration of the human
sheath with a human sword
is hereby unlawful,

the mention or advocacy
of the consummation of love
without proper permissions,
oversight, and regulation
is hereby unlawful,

the act itself
is hereby suspended until further notice,
and the circumvention
of the aforementioned prohibitions
is hereby unlawful.

the masses
are leaving mass
and spreading out
in a quasi-theological
diaspora
to the four corners
of conway AR
and beyond

with blood and flesh
in them
they cross
their hearts
and begin to cross
the street in front of me

i wave an elderly woman
through the
cross walk
but she is nearly
struck
by a car coming
the opposite direction

through my window
i mouth these words
to the other
less considerate driver

can’t you see she’s mourning

thank you for destroying the dinosaurs
with a comet
all of those years ago,
for being invisible,
so that i can properly pray to you.

i imagine myself
late at night
to be your maker,
the brain and flesh that
pieced you into the interstellar tapestry,

placed you like clockwork,
calibrated the tilting
off-kilter poles. the enigmatic clouds
you wear around are the belches
and flatulence of my dreams, you are
a cosmic comic, i chuckle with you
through the eons and spin madly.

we are, all of us, spinning.

but you know that. you are
blue in the face with it.

thank you for watching
as i crept out of a tidepool,
and for the ceremonious wave
you offered when we flew past you,
solar wind pulling our mechanical sails taut.

today the sun is bright,
the sky  sacred blue
and you know so much about color
and heliopause and thank you
for reminding me that when i think i am cold
i am not at all.

I live in a neighborhood full of trees. For the past three years of my life, I’ve been surrounded by pavement and brick. I forgot what it is like to be surrounded by living things. Squirrels and birds and bugs and raccoons. Just today I was outside on the porch and was nearly deafened by the creaking croaking cawing squealing chirping of a flock of birds roosting in the tree across the street. It was cloudy, and each bird appeared against the gray sheet like a smudge of ink. They seemed to melt into the tree limbs as if they lacked substance, becoming for a moment a part of the wooden giant. They kept up the din and within seconds another flock of birds joined them and set to calling. Another flock swooped in from the West, flitting around the Central Baptist College bell tower. Another from the South, winging over my head. I watched at least a dozen separate flocks of birds congregate in the tree across Simms, all of them sooty fingerprints strobing across the sky. The Earth, if you have forgotten, is unequivocally vibrant and alive.

I have a $25 dollar gift card to the iTunes Music Store. What should I buy?

I could not ask for a better birthday gift than to have my parents in the crowd, and to be able to read some of the words that I call poems.

That being said, here is one of the things that I call poem that I chose to read last night. For your enjoyment.

an assortment of kisses

one for the door frame, obviously.
another goes to the
Good Book, of which i have read
only parts. a kiss for each person

who has read the whole thing–
the parts about heifers and blood
and the long genealogies
splintering down from Adam

to the holy hands of Christ.
a kiss for the reel of film
my father frequents, a negative
image of my lips touching his,

and for my mother sitting up at night
reading books written by authors
that i hate, a kiss to say,
i am sorry i am not who you wanted.

a routine mouth to mouth
with a beer bottle–they have come
to expect it of me and how can
i refuse? likewise, i kiss a cigarette

and it kisses my lungs in return.
i kiss every girl i meet because
there is such mystery in the petals
of their lips, and for my effort

i have so many questions. a kiss for
the sun and for the moon, but from the moon
there is only a reflection of a kiss,
and i have spent much of my life

tempting that silver egg to hatch
life and kiss me back. i give a kiss
to midnight because it is like
stealing a kiss from tomorrow.

i peck a songbird’s lips and bleed.
then grow feathers in my brain
and leap from the roof of my house.
i hear a songbird’s song and bleed.

i kiss myself before i fall asleep
so that there will be someone
to wake up with. i kiss the pillow
and dream. pillows are terrible kissers.