Ringworm Summer

On the porch that noon, we
share matches, light alcohol
from a blue bottle in our wounds.

Your purple wetsuit mended
with flag material, my mother's
bikini tied and tied again, we

urge our rented ponies into
the surf, into the blue muck
dirtied by Wednesday's rain.

Coral the color of an old scar
tears a smile into your arm;
fish, sharp paparazzi, gather to lick.

Shattered Fetlock


My uncle tells me not to
touch the tiny blue eggs
nested in the oleander bush

outside his front door.
His doorbell sounds
like a fading ice-cream

truck. Robins congregate
on his lawn, singing a Beatle's
album in reverse. On the front

steps I wear heavy gloves
meant for a much larger
man, but everything is breaking,
opening its yellow eyes.

New Painting



It's for sale if you want it.

3 dreams


It is winter and we are skiing. I am not burning as quickly as usual. You put your hand over my eyes as if to shield me from the sun.


It is winter, but at the carnival everyone is wearing shorts and pink tank tops. I wonder if I'm the only one who can feel the cold. I watch a girl watch her snow cone drip onto her toes. Her toes turn blue and start to expand.


It is not winter, or it is winter, but not very cold. The sun is missing from the sky; everything is a sort of swirled elephant or donkey gray. You are holding a sleeping cat on a park bench. The cat's head droops over your arm as if he has no muscles, or is made of rubber. Somewhere in a tree a bird makes a sound like a small cat.

Used to Live, II


the smear I drew with off-pink
lipstick on the flocked wallpaper

the torn underside of the mattress
the odd-smelling crease where
the dresser and floor meet, left side

my brother in the backseat, staring
out the window at nothing

the bed of a yellow pick-up truck,
night time

tucking your head under my chin
clock gears hidden under the sofa

cushions, sunburnt square of skin
between my shoulders

here's a happy (er) poem and pic from the state fair.

Your Tenth Birthday

clamor, bells, ringing that
sounds like the radio's voice,

awakened from your nap
by your own light, your flesh

glows a little, you leave traces
on the curtains when you sigh;

outside in the warm evening streets,
people leave their cars at stoplights,

move onto our lawn, hold their breath
at our picture window, all of us waiting

Idaho, 1972

A fly the size of a diamond
ring lays eggs in the bay
mare's wounds, deep red

holes near her withers.
The horse flicks (right, left,
left) her velvet pocketbook

ears, nibbles the yellow
stubble smearing the roots
of the dogwood; the dogwood's

scars are closing
over our names. If you
put your hands together,

you can help me
up onto her back.
Thumbs in her rubies,

we fly around the yard,
wind ripping dirty fingers
through our pony tails.

------

Hello, world.