Let’s leave our living rooms for the wolves.

When the sky opens into whiteness

and comes down over us, why not go out into it?

The girls in the parking lot behind the Chevron have just

smoked their first cigarettes, and were not clumsy at it.

Each one assumed she would be: that she would fumble

with the lighter, struggle just to get the tip to flame,

then drag too deeply on the thing between her fingers.

for Rob K.

I want to align my spine

with yours, I want to get on all fours

and carry you places. I’d be enlightened

if I could with anybody, everybody

for Junot Díaz

Tune in, spoon into, this audio sputter, the din

of my judo-jumped heart—you who make me

no-doubt dizzy. My horizon’s dotted with tidbits and tactics

The biggest mistake of your life walks into a bar. Height bestows a certain specialness and he is just tall enough to qualify as special. As usual, he attracts more attention than you.

I should be there

Among the daffodils

After we arrive

Our trains turn into

Inside of Town Hall the townspeople are

having a meeting. What’s it to you, one of them asks

as I walk in and I say very little, smiling as they imagine

whether I mean what I say. Sitting in the corner

My own personal map of America on the back of the airplane seat

where the cartoon plane tells you where you’ve been and where

you’re going is, for some reason, in Spanish. So it reads Montes Apalaches.

Tonight over casual conversation,

words brought you up or out

from where I keep you,

and you were my stepmom again

and I was telling some of his family,

(paintings by Hikari Shimoda)

What is lost is lost for good reason. Things turn bizarre when the canvas of my feelings is

better off in front of the MacBook at home.

Every morning my father prayed on his knees

at the side of his marriage bed. He bowed

his head and poured his prayers into two loose fists

over his mouth. We watched in wonder

(Chicago as was, in memory of Robert Hayden and his memory)

Summer nights cool came down

blotting heat like a kiss for colored children.

Heat surged

as we danced jagged up and down the street,

1.

I have crossed over some

where I can buy a cross

road map For mummified worlds with

in words I invent