BURNING HOUSE PRESS

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Rubberneckin’

I passed by a church basement

full of old people dancing

cheek to cheek to rnb

on Valentine’s Day 

And all the young white single 

people in the city stopped

and said can you believe it?

Can you believe it?

And how could we? Believe that 

quietly each and every 

one all wanted that for us

We’d do anything 

for that to be us 

We’d give money, sex

trade our age for theirs 

to hold each other close in the basement 

and misremember youth we gave up for now

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Clone Wars

How many guys with

stupid brown fiddly haircuts

do there need to be

before someone does something drastic?

I know I have a soul

a big blue mile-thick soul but

I don’t know about them

their teeth and black jeans and pus

truth is

I hate them

them I hate

the way an ape bares its teeth at the mirror 

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Felix and Regula

Got too high and started imagining the kids I’m gonna have

I don’t usually think about the future of people that aren’t me

But I could see them

They weren’t much, just little scenes

unwashed kid hair and sticky breath

and myself, old, rounder

For my daughter 

who had a stupid name her mom picked out 

like Evangeline 

I dreamed about saying I wouldn’t just love her but 

would always give her the benefit of the doubt

the way boys don’t do with their women

And for my son

who was perfect

and named something big and sweet and dumb

that I got to choose

I just thought about all the baseball players

I want him to know were great 

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