Making it in silence
like Theda Bara
with a moon over her shoulder
and a man at her neck,
nuzzled and twisted
– no time for rest while
being speared senseless from behind
(who says she needed an apple crate?).
She liked her neck bent too far…

Men like Boris and Buster
sneezed magic into small frames
but the beast used the whole
damn landscape to woo her
into submission, a relatively common
mid-century bracket
explained by talking animals
and hifalutin dance moves (in capes).

Moaning is meaningless
unless someone’s there to catch it.
Her release sounded like shuffling
and looked like a Ferris wheel
from beneath, all spun glitter,
tales of derring-do spilling from cars
into a thick night.

Another prayer
piled atop mud and bread
Not of Lautrec or Coughlin,
he hummed the song of the sea dog
and queued alongside the rabble

Fed and cleansed
-full service
like at a 1950’s gas station.

Being born with a tornado
on my forehead
is a secret I’ve carried
for too long,
but it’s hard to explain to those
only seeing a faint mark
what it feels like
to hold back storms in the face of
sunsets and soda commercials
dripping with the sincerity
that lord knows is missing
from my deep conversations
with the cashiers and bag boys
who care enough to stack the bread
on top of the bananas.

There is no true digital sepia
as good as the childhood memories
of days in the meadow before it all blew away,
but I may be imagining the whole thing.

I feel like I forget what comes first
and which way is blue,
what time is touch,
where are the getting-lost woods?
I feel small in my heavy chair,
wondering about you,
how to make bridges of petals,
and if you miss my voice at all.
I feel yesterday is bigger
but these feet haven’t gone far enough,
sun is not overrated though it’s cocky,
and evenings are too sad alone, like now.

Of wind grabbing my hair
through the car window,
begging me to look
outside–
I’ve been here before
and though the road has been repaved,
the break inside is still shaky,
like it could reopen
with a specific jolt
of the wheels.