what about garbage chutes?
the caterpiller's neck
the evening tie to a sleeping man’s alley
ash-blown crumbs and
shoe lace pasta
the forgotten cents, gift-wrapped burgers, or
mucus cozied in white--
our sneeze’s coffin--
all our secretes, guilts and drool
embracing for a midnight descent.
this is architecture.
somewhere between the cardboard roof
and pigeon’s clapping pair,
resurrected worms from earth’s batter,
the stubbed toe and crumbling curb
(here, we disturb)
from elbow to cheek
our furrowed peak
a carved duet of
the perfect view
a twitched eave of rotten food
and flowered tombs
one long hall swallowing words
and ten lines to trace the birds.
on two we move from stomach to grave
packing days like receipts and raindrop
afternoons, hungover or rude
caked in sweat, the salted prelude:
it’s a dance-ache-earth-quake
a long, spinning tune
open the gate, feel the wind’s shoulder shake
the lint of the belly’s eye
here we live
and snore through stars
rest like the paper old hands
fold grey birthday cards
or naked soles touch mornings
chilled floors, or wood-walled
guards hold the warm days
into cold nights.
our breaths cannot be modeled
a shudder cannot be built
the park bench theater
of a thousand stolen lips
is a cathedral of time
the spit shrine under the desk
everyone’s greatest art:
your nail clippings a-float, family-old joke
the puddle that never dries
the baby-shoe attic
tv static
the rusty razor-blade
the screams of an apple-acid stomach
the shards of a missed red-light
thunder-clapping stealing-storms
pool-pruning tips and ice-breaking quips
it is memory in form
a tin-box play
the scars of a fall
a museum of every day