Come on, its just your opinion
the TV disagrees with—do you know how
human beings disappear? I hear
silence in the pause of a trash truck
backing up, when the hairdryer’s blown a fuse.
This program may contain some violent content.
Natural mango body butter–
it’s new, I just picked it up from the store.
Lean in closer, you’re my brother
so I want you to know
statistics show that there’s not much
hope—what is that buzzing?
The microwave radiating–
it would be nice to do something so well.
Yesterday, through the window I saw
the most beautiful thing—balloons tied to the
neighbor’s mailbox. The yellow …

When I went to Iceland
my family said
I wouldn’t know what to do
with my luggage.
Their worries were
like wishes.
Did you know 70 percent of Icelanders
believe in Huldovolk? Now I believe
the reason I go
is to come back home.
There’s only one road in Iceland,
a loop.
Loopy became a word we used
to make time stop.
But in Iceland I climbed
to the top of a glacier.
The air was so clean
my face burned and peeled
like a shape shifter.
(I thought, I could learn to sleep here.)
The night I came home
my brother laid awake
sweating into his sheets.
I found him gripping
the digital …

I’m afraid the guy who cuts
My hair someday will snap, talk
Baseball, slide the razor down my face, pull
My locks as we discuss the demise of the LA Times
And use the scissors on my eyes
Because he swears he sees a dotted line.
Last week I stood in line
At the deli, watched the butcher cut
Salami and sausage, his eyes
Focused on the meat while he talked
To the guy in front of me. “Sign of the times,”
The butcher said, as he went to pull
The pork, concealed hands as he pulled
His pistol on the guy ‘cause …

We didn’t believe when we first heard, because you know how church folks can gossip. Like the time the elders were convinced Sister Janice’s daughter had been turned into a lesbian when she began playing rugby in college. For weeks, we heard the grown folks whisper about how no girl should be playing football—it just wasn’t right—and it must have been that roommate who had come onto her in the middle of the night and turned her gay, until she showed up to Easter service holding hands with a shy …