Three Poems

CREEK

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_8/Glaviano1.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″]

We have no accent. The way we say room
is contingent upon the room.

We took this class once, on how nurses say loss.
The way we say loss, we learned, never varies:

Arm or mother.
Blood or hearing.

It sounds like the word for topsoil
distributed by wind.

People ask us where we’re from
and we say dust.

They ask after our manners
and we point them to the creek.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_8/Glaviano2.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″]

If two people show up wearing the same thing
only one should go home to change, says Host.

The evening plods along like time.
That is its value, which is pegged to the Chinese yuan.

Someone tells me snowfall sounds like static.
This is the worst party I’ve ever been at.

The difference between blackmail and friendship
is that there are recourses for victims of blackmail.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/6_8/Glaviano3.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″]

The No Exit Center provides you all the one-click tools,
tips and information you need to voice your support

for the removal of exits from buildings across America.
I am sitting in my studio on the thirteenth floor

of a glittering high-rise in a bustling metropolis.
My grandfather used to say

all streets should be one way
and that way should be down.

We were taught not to let on how we felt.
We were taught to swim above sea level.

This next song is called Copulate
and it goes out to a Mister Everyone.