WE PICTURE THE PRESIDENT
We picture the President walking
the late-night hotel hallways,
alone, in starched white boxers.

We picture the President in the airport AppleBees
with a suitcase stuffed
with more than seven thousand poems
about him, typed or scribbled
on small scraps of trash.

We picture the President sipping a Red Bull.

We picture the President telling a joke.
He looks the audience over
like a roomful of 3rd cousins.

We picture the President mountain biking
with his Secretary of Defense,
playing handball with Putin,
and slipping Mickies into our dreams
like dark curtains...

standing over our beds,
his head tilted,
watching us over his Foster Grants.

COOKOUT
They had friends over for a cookout.
Quite a few people came.
They grilled salmon, knockwurst, bratwurst, burgers.
Six people brought potato salad.
After midnight, when everyone had left,
he felt drunk and laid down on the back porch.
There were bottles everywhere—some in clusters,
some standing alone or on their sides or in the hedge.
Miller, Molson, Lowenbrau, Budweiser, Bud Light,
Coors, Coors Light, a few Amstel Lights.
It all made him think of nothing.  His mind
had been racing lately… now it slowed down, down…
he laid flat on his back, feeling his head
rock ever so slightly on the boards
where only an hour ago people had walked, danced,
stood laughing or arguing, holding hotdogs, eating coleslaw.
The wind came howling now, blowing dust and sand.
He had no idea where his wife was.
Had she gone somewhere?  He couldn’t say.
His head, rocking right and left on the boards.
A little slack now in his cheeks.
I would imagine he felt it all slipping gently away.
The season was changing.  It grew very cold.
Then snowed lightly.  The wind and blown sand
picked the faded labels off the beer bottles.
The house filled with cobwebs and kids from town
looted the place—took the grill, the stereo,
then all the furniture, appliances, rugs,
teacups and towel racks.
Two years passed.  This asshole was out!
The landscape had been denuded.  There once
had been Hungarian partridge and bougainvillia.
Now there was nothing.  And yet his chest
raised gently, paused, and lowered…
raised gently, paused, and lowered….
Some say he’s “pissed it all away.”
Others say he knows exactly what he’s doing.

THE GODMOTHER
She awoke from her nightmare
and lay there soaked with sweat.
She ran her hands all over her face,
her fingers smelling of lemons,
her male godchild beside her like a mummy
amputated from the world.

They had gone to sleep together
in the white van on the side of the road.
A car hissed on the wet highway.
A bit of moonlight came in through the curtains.
There was a dark lump near her leg.
It was her sweatshirt.  She picked it up
as if she’d never seen it before.

Half an hour passed.
She watched her sleeping male godchild.
They called him Henry…
his cheeks like veal cutlets.
She ran her hands all over this boy’s face--
it was like the mask of a male godchild.

He smelled of fresh soap and leather.
And truck seats.  And kaiser rolls.
She needed to adjust her senses.
Her hands worked like ants.
They covered the boy’s face.
She needed the boy to wake up.
It just wasn’t going to happen.

I’M GLAD I FOUND THE HORSE DOC
Another day, not
even drinking coffee on
the toilet makes me smile.

Today so apparent: someone
should have kicked Kinski’s
Nosferatu in the nuts
HARD.  Or duct-taped him
to a pool table &
raped him with a carrot.

As a unit of nourishment
me cheeseburger comes at me
through the drive-up window

& later the local horse doc with
a fleck of placenta on his cheek.
I put a hand on his shoulder.
I tell him “draw a face on
the side of your hand you’ll
have a friend all day.”

He tells me “one man’s journey
the inverse of another’s.”

SURGERY OF THE SOUL
I have done something to myself.
I have “put something into my glass”
so to speak, while everyone was watching.
I have begun crossing my own name off
the list—tonight’s list—
and the path of the pencil is slowed
way down and takes seven minutes.

I have done something to myself,
“dropped something into my drink”
as they say.  Everyone is watching.
As my name comes off the list it
sounds like a recording of
a constipated walrus played back
slowly, very slowly.

I have done something to myself.
It’s as if the doctor has leaned over me.
It’s as if the nurse has adjusted my cheeks
with the cotton balls, has turned
in her chair to shop at Nordstrom’s,
and my open eyes begin to ice over
like bird baths.

I have done something to myself.
I imagine my drink with a stain in it.
I think it’s a blood clot.  The walrus
floats belly up to the surface of its tank.
I jiggle my glass… needing something to rhyme
with surface of its tank, like, one who
robs a bank, or, sailors dancing on the plank.

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