Too Many Boys in the Basement

One is enough, and anyway, they’re men.

Kudzu not lichen. Lichen not human.

Human not tulips. Tulips not loam.

To be only loam, to be ready at the touch

for one replication of the universe.

A lightbulb to resemble the daylight,

the daylight eager to erase the night,

night to settle, sure of itself, as a man

in the yard grabs dog by the collar,

drags dog to the ground. Dog of highest

heaven, I’d rather elevate the dog.

Fall Off the Bone

That’s what the roast is supposed to do, so it does.

Oh that I were as well-behaved.

If you pray to the bone will you learn

what the bone knows? Or will

you just be the letterhead

on naked paper? Will you

finetune your cuticles

to catch degree by degree

the shift in wind? How will

the spirit sing in your heavy

heart? How will the garden

untended make song

out of streelights?

How low does an alley go

before it meets the sea again?

What is the railroad’s rattle doing

to one loose bulb?

Your body is wrong. Your body is wrong as a machine full of lead. Your body doesn’t know

itself. Your knee turns out. Think of your body as a landmine. Think of your body as knotted

garden hose. How could God live in your palm? How, when clenching in your sleep? How, when

you slap an alarm to wake yourself up? If your body knew itself, you’d be up to feed the

chickens before dawn. You’d be someone’s pastoral landscape, wrought in oils so thick you can

taste it, taste the river shuddering through fertile soil. You’d be the sunset at a woman’s back as

she calls to her children, somewhere out of frame, who are skinny with summer, a Catherine

wheel of knees.