9.11 / November 2014

Before an ice storm snuck through Bodock, Mississippi, and flung woods to the earth by the acre, before the younger twin, shovel in tow, was led to an emu pinned to that same cold earth by a spruce pine to ease the creature’s transition, before any of that, it was the older brother drawing beads

I don’t blame them for what they want to do to me. Sometimes I myself have to make deals in my head to stop me from doing it, too.

Remember this. How his old car wheezes down your block and how it always feels like a chariot. How he lures music out of your dusty guitar and you write down a metaphor for your body. Remember the parking lot.

My friend Winter’s fingers are cold like you’d expect, and I notice it because she doesn’t take my hand often.

Heather didn’t see the Patriots at first. When they walked in with their chests puffed out she was bent over herself yanking madly at the zippered heel of her mint and silver flats, holding for balance the perforated metal shelf of a Hostess™ products endcap.

Briquette hot. Getting ready to ride the Rocket Jets at Disneyland. Someone ahead carried a small radio. Steve Miller singing. Above the spinning ride. Below we’d see Tomorrowland.

In the gun cabinet, two playgrounds one for me, one for mother two men approach from the fences in the gun cabinet, a hand my body, his body inside her, then blackout in the gun cabinet I say he touched me [I am acted on]

I am BOUNTIFUL and SPRINGY I JUMP and BUMP into the bosom of AMERICA FIRST CLASS and NICE ASS BIG BEARD and FEELIN WEIRD INSTANT GLORY A PRIORI

When goats are born, they dive into the world front legs first, poised to hit the ground. Their faces come next—nose, eyes, ears, the places where their horns will be—and then, the rest—body, tail, back legs. Moments later, the doeling or buckling will wobble to its feet—stunned, amazed, ready to begin.

The deliveries came by standard post. Boxes wrapped in brown paper, waiting for me in the hallway of my apartment building. Sometimes they were wrapped in brown paper with no box, as for example when the delivery was something soft, like a wig.

Little, this last piece of paper is very small. When I found you, Little, you were standing, growing, by the word THIS written out in stones.

when the world was formed, my mother bled when the world was cheap, i bought bags of concrete when the world was still hovering, i killed a robin when the world was filthy, i laughed