the cosine of my latitude

the world moves around the sun at approximately 67,000 miles per hour

from where i stand, the world rotates at about 1,000 miles per hour

times the cosine of my latitude

sometimes i can feel it before i fall asleep

between dream and awake

where everything is warm and chilling

and everybody whizzes by without faces

if God pricked His finger on the axis

we'd all stumble with arms spread

and fall down like dominoes

molasses words

conundrum (noun)

1.

a riddle, the answer to which involves a pun or play onwords, as What is black and white and read all over? A newspaper.

2.

anything that puzzles.

isn't that a great word?

when everything really feels all mixed up and shaky, like you'll never get out

and you say

"conundrum,"

it feels (almost) impossible not to smile at the fact that

yes

you just said that

and though it may have gotten stuck to your teeth on the way out of your mouth

it doesn't matter what's black or white or read all over

or black and blue and red all over

barely beating

because you've got enough air left in your lungs to laugh at the absurdity

of your present situation

it feels about the same when you say

"God"

maybe a little different, a little more solemn

but sometimes that doesn't roll off the tongue as easily as it should either

baby food

the way people whisper

their L's ooze out like bananas

mushed between tongue and teeth

internal bleeding

i can taste her in your mouth
her tongue snaking between our lips
salted with cheap booze and hash

your hands are on my body
twisting her clothes around your fingers
her skin smooth beneath your fumbling touch

i can feel her pulse behind your ribs
bruising my chest and the matter beneath it
widening gray space

your eyes are her eyes
when i look at you i hear her laughing
you never look at me

i can see her in your words
bubblegum and soft against you
i am sharp elbows and crooked teeth

raggedy [andy]

i'm not sure who you are yet.

you might taste like cigarette smoke. your winter coat might have four-holed buttons and weak thread that frays anytime i pick at it.

your heart might be made of broken promises and your head full of superglue, and your hands hold out to me a jigsawed collage that creaks when you tell me who made it.

you might move like a ragdoll, flailing around because gravity hasn't decided which way to pull you yet. i hope it pulls you closer to happiness and i hope we collide on the way there, our legs trailing behind us, chests forward in anticipation.

transparent privacy fences

i've been living life on the tip of my tongue

for once i know exactly how to say it

then someone else speaks up and it slips into my stomach

a bitterness settling in my mouth

my face in my head is different from

my face in the bathroom mirror

white and owlish like roadkill

pinkish gray organs scattered in the street

my name tastes funny when people ask who i am

it slides between my lips like an underwater murmur

sticks to my teeth like butterscotch

it's who my mother wanted me to be

mended fences mean someone is happy again

broken fences mean someone was never happy before

and when they got the chance they took it

i've never broken a fence

i used to swing as high as i could

the night swallowing the ground beneath my bare feet

i'd fling my body into the air to see how long i could fly

when did i become so old and afraid?

did it make you feel alive

sighed, thought you'd have a glass of scotch

the amber flame licked your throat and

burned in the bottle until you swallowed it all

you sank into black dreams

of your wife writhing between hospital sheets

her sallow skin shifting under final breaths

of her skeleton hand falling slack against the bed

the ring on her finger clinking on the hospital floor

the metal as cold as her lips

you woke, scotch stale on your breath

groped in the dark for the drawer

blinked the booze from your eyes and saw

it rested heavy against your head

the trigger hugged your finger

the metal as cold as her lips

you felt the grinding of the barrel against your head

heard the click and prayed she would be there

her skeleton hand out for you to grasp

you woke, writhing between hospital sheets

the lights peeled your eyes open

this wasn't heaven

the blood crumbled as you touched your temple

you wanted to run

but your leg lay slack against the bed

your hair grew back, covers the scar

you lean on a cane, grip its neck

the metal as cold as her lips

love, almost

you are just a story i will tell my daughter

when her head rests heavy in my lap

as she asks me why her heart is breaking

when i say i love her father

i'll think of how he studies me

and how i hope to god he doesn't see your face

when he looks into my eyes

all the clocks tick different times

and in all their faces i see you

and they shriek through the night

shake me from someone else's dreams of you

i'll look into her beautiful eyes

eyes that shimmer with tears so familiar

and as i look for you i will find my own shadow

lurking in the blackness of love, almost