Crunching stone
Dirt along the curb
Colors Fall

A jellyfish like
disconnected lips
kissed
fell around
and on
his hips

“This is how I'm going to die,” thought Dimitri Jay Roach, as the two buses came closer and closer to his shoulders. There was a dull scratching sound as the one to his right smeared brown dust against the corner of his bag. The thought of wiping off the dead skin made him slightly nauseous. He looked down the corridor, to one of the antenna-like side view mirrors, and, suddenly, one of them honked.

“Fuck you!” He cried, almost involuntarily, fully contented by the sound of his own, justifiable rage, “Fuck you both!” He lifted his middle fingers and raised his body away from the handlebars. And as the sides of the two buses touched, like a giant trash compactor, the gawking faces in the windows kissed their butthole mouths together in the gleeful joy of killing a cyclist.

I would prefer to die ahead of you,
cross-legged in a pine needle shag,
than to watch your love brown.

And the way that you touch me—green carpet,
clean dirt, and a warm sun— baby,
we were meant to be together.

You are so many frogs,
and each one of them is edible,
but they’re gone the moment
I forget about them (no sooner).

I like that about you.

And at the same time
your thousand little fingers caress my body
as gentle as the wind,
like they're flossing my buttcrack.

You let pretty much anyone rest
in-between your breasts,
and explore your valleys and caves,
and drink from your face and even
poop on your stomach.

Sometimes I think you’re just
the best kind of slut.

You have the most darling expression
when you watch the television.

No, you look real ugly when you watch the television.
Like batteries through the night,
never hungry always eating. You must belong
you must belong. They must think it's wrong,

for a mother to die ahead of her sons,
those people who say
“I would prefer that you be first to die.”

To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world...I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life.
                                                                                            --The Little Prince


Baby fox said to the farmer, “I cannot be tamed,
but you may try.”

The farmer thought the fox had a very beautiful coat,
and so every day he made time to go out and visit the fox
and admire her in the woods. Every day

he would watch her, or sing for her or bring her food.
Sometimes he pet her.

And when it got cold she said to him “Please,
I care for you, and do not wish to be apart
for the winter. Please, may I sleep in the warmth of your house?”

That winter she slept in his house.

She laid at his feet by the fire every night,
with the snow blowing outside, and they were very happy.

One day he gave her a collar and she said “Now I am so happy.
I would certainly be a fool to ever leave the warmth
of this house. May I be your baby fox?”

Time passed. They talked and talked and talked
about the times they would have in the spring,
when the flowers came out and the grass grew tall.

Because she would be his baby fox.

Then came Spring, almost in a morning,
and the farmer made a cup of coffee, and realized
she was not at all in the house anymore.

Some days later he found her rolling and laughing in a field.
She noticed him and smiled, resting lazily on her back,
“Hello friend! It's springtime again, and everything is back to the way it used to be!
Will you play with me like you did before?”

The farmer held up her old collar he had found
abandoned in the woods “I thought I had tamed you.” he said.

“No” she smiled “I remember now that I can never be tamed,
because I am too young and too beautiful for that now.
If I wear a collar then the other farmers will not give me milk
and bread and pet me and I will be sad.

Maybe someday when I am a little older
and my coat is a little coarser, I will be ready to be tamed.”

With that she presented her tummy so that he might rub it for her.

That night the farmer built himself the last fire
because it was spring now,
and looked around his little farm house
and saw all the things they had done in the winter.

And as the fire faded he asked himself
“Whatever happened to my sweet baby fox?”

Real cucumbers have these little white hairs.
Real basil is delicious and easy.
Real pumpkins don't get silly till fall.
Real tomatoes and zucchinis can't be stopped
and have to be sold to my neighbors.

A real fish requires feeling the flesh
of another living thing
contract between your fingers.

Real peppers get killed in the summer hailstorm.
Real eggplants are a burden to the stalk.
Real berries require armor or band aids.
Real cabbage gets eaten if you don't spray it
with milk, and my mother was always so lazy.

A real cow requires not knowing anything
at all. I say this only because
I don't grow real cows.

I can't stop. I know
the little children. I know
the big, fat I love New York.

I bust like the waterfall
filling the silo of rubber balloons,
recreationally. Even I, who sometimes dreams
of sucking moisture from bread with Ivan Denisovich.

It boils in a tub on the sidewalk.
Or—it's not boiling. He drinks it.
He swallows it. He digests it I guess.
His sphincter puckers up and pops
every rubber footed step. My child points,
prodding, then kneading the little puffs
of smog. The peanut butter is jubilant:
                                                No need to stir!
                                                it assures me.

You can tell she was a woman who felt.
With a body like a water pitcher
her mouth howling, opened to the moon
which saw the circular tears of her
scream painted down both cheeks.

Four snakes then came from the grass
and held her body like a decorative candle
as she wrapped her arms around her own back.
There were many men, but none
entered the moonlit spotlight.

I see her balancing between four windows
and the men from two walls, still watching
with empty faces. I can see her back then,
as the shaman covered her body in clay
and the men laid down their faces
at the edge of the moon.

This is high school.
I am coached for hours
to wrap my legs around another man.

And they have seen every bit of our bodies,
Yet they know nothing about us.

Like how we used to train naked
in the sand. Like two dogs.

Now we are locked away
in our blue padded room.

We are not amoebas,
thrusting across microfilm floors:
some form of life below the basketball.