I bit into your apples once before.


How naive was I?



It felt weird thinking of bodies as building

sky scrapers.



The next day I woke up, rubbed my sour rib bones

Felt their crossbeams bowed.



Your clouds make this portion above my city swelter.

I can’t stop thinking of big bad wolf things



tight itchy wool turtle necks.

I’m sorry this doesn’t make sense.



I’ve had a hard time finding my words.

I've been picking up their dilled weight all morning,



their trashed past tenses embedded in my carpet.

I can't see the moon



but smell his name

still in the thin air.



Where did my exlax go, he asked



when he came to bed. When he started snoring

I got up.



Have I already forgotten his name?

They were two first names.



I open the fridge. There is a bottle of Worchestire on the middle shelf,

stains set into the crisper from Grape Soda spilt months ago.



I shut the door.

I control something.

Roman emperor who ate figs off the trees, painted in hemlock,
the only person to ever be poisoned by a mistress

Twenty minutes later, I drop boiling water from the tea kettle on my hand.

Is this what feeling feels like?



Reminded me of the time you held my hand under the facet.

Home remedy, he says, and pours a bottle of vinegar over my knuckles.





My thumb burns. Looking at my hand, I couldn’t see it burning.

Is this what feeling feels like?



The sun came through the blinds at a slant

casting long light streaks on the opposite wall.

Space affecting space.



I work at a hotel. The maintenance man calls late last week, asks,

had I seen the rose bushes he planted. Yes, I said.



He told me to go out and look at them again, that he’d wait.

I told him I was busy. He hung up on me.





A lady called to cancel a reservation.

There is space



in the computer requiring a reason for cancelation:

Husband of 45 years found out he has Lymphatic Cancer. Doctor forbids travel.



Sometimes, I don’t like answers.

I thought of slapping you, he said



but I didn’t want to hurt you.

Farther behind you,



before I walk out the door, before coming over

ten years from now



years ago,

remember, we were inside time and change



beg for change

beg for penny candy

beg for these clouds



thick as fat windows.