it was a nun they say invented barbed wire

again pepper's ghost

advanced technology

folded away in the memory 

of nature with her toys

at work listening to Ulysses 

A LibriVox Recording

I'm falling back into Joyceland

my strange addiction 

I'm so superstitious 

everything a breadcrumb 

and then a packet in today's 

post from a lawyer 

who shares your first name 

which in Iran is maybe 

very common but to me 

it's only yours

as I scan the packet I think 

or think I ought to think 

that no matter how in agreement

two people are and no matter 

how intent they are to try 

it's dumb to think of love as possess-able

it just won't be possessed

but the way he jumps like a cat

to keep the balloon off the ground

the way he climbs his roof to sweep 

the redwood needles from the corrugated 

plastic skylight the way he touches my back

as I wash my face in the meantime

the cubicle the mail room

the printer room the inbox 

it’s a lot of alone

I think this life the runaway train

can only be slowed by obsession 

full immersion full absorption with detail

like the scientists on the radio

today one says humans when egged into 

existential dread or fear of mortality

are more comforted by a story of 

our uniqueness as individuals than

a story of solidarity with all animals

but if we’re told animals are special too

we feel better or something like that

or we are driven to compassion perhaps

I want to know the set up for these experiments

what they use to prompt the dread

then how they take it away

rare and mythic vs senseless thrum

insufferable Anais Nin says 

she loves her nightmares

that she doesn’t understand why Henry 

is trying to be a philosopher that philosophers 

are merely preparing for death 

classicists are dying as they try to dominate life

with philosophy while romantics are living it

but still, how to be big enough

when what scares me is so simple

inertia and irreverence

not caring when I should 

slipping backstage to just

project my hologram off of a mirror

and then eventually just 

leaving a statue in my place 

to do the reflecting

soul shoppe

between birth and death

between eight and noon

between noon and one

between one and five

yes, the office could be 

described as "climate-

controlled" my back

to the windows where 

the day morphs without 

me in it a silent time-lapse

the cleanliness of it all

how I've been cut and

pasted into this cubicle

red fleur

between birth and death we get lost for a while

in the corner market across from the beach 

there is a very cheap perfume in a dusty box on a low shelf

I'm trying to wiggle the bottle out to take a photo 

but I keep pulling just the top off which is clear red plastic 

shaped like a flower and the bottle itself drops back into the box 

I don't want to make a scene so I just peer in and can see 

the liquid is also red and I wonder which no. dye

normal

it's a little too normal I'm trying to think 

beautiful thoughts between noon and one

debating phone calls / walks / purchases

to make but don't choose any in time 

~?

I stomp on the parking break and don't push the door open far enough 

for it to not start to close on me

I put my left foot on the curb and look up at a v of geese

trusting desire the desire for some language over the curve of a moment

my self the marble rolls off the table again and keeps going

why do I get stuck sideways this bad attitude

another school dream an auditorium but where the stage would be is a wall of aquarium glass

and the ocean directly against it and the type of seahorses that look like seaweed but the size of dolphins

we can't leave the school because the ocean is rising so rapidly

********** * * * * * * *th

what happens when you're bitten by angels

my life went nowhere but my hair grew very long

the size of a marble

glass slippers on crystal stairs

you appear to be happy, you ash in a puddle

I'm jealous of myself 

for the way I felt then

the wax on the bottle 

is holding the candle

that's burning like true love 

in the middle of the table

dream of a worksheet of questions

numbered with cut out and pasted squares

reminiscent of ice cubes all haphazard kindergarten

searching a dvd's special features for the answers

go to sleep with a potion

wake up with an alarm

I'm in trouble in the dream

I'm always in trouble at school

I don't even know

half the time how I feel

dot dot dot perfectly centered

symmetrical kisses

I didn't want to do harm 

to a creature we made

however deadly and unviable

the size of a marble

public access poetry

nighttime is in love with candles

knowledge porridge nail polish

bespoke the flowers

what if who I wish I was

is in the house 3 blocks over

and I just have to get there

august 1 i'm afraid i won't remember how i feel

knowing it is the hottest year in human history

I still want every day of summer to rhyme with slow 

I still want the heavy air that shifts my mind

even if the shifting is my double helixes uncoiling

last night at the boys' house we sat on the old couch out front

I felt gentle with the pink sky framed by the wisteria 

he said he wished he could purchase time

an extra 10 hours per day

this morning we woke up naked in the bed

that I'll share with my mother this evening