His books and shoes packed,
it ends. Her body
a crime scene. Twisted
and chalked like an acrobat’s
hands. But harder.

The Internet is full of people
you can hire—or barter with—
to straighten you out.
Pay in the usual
currency—cocktails &
sad stories. Or just
lick each other clean.

Holding one’s breath competitively
is a violent pasttime.
But the peppers, the smooth
fruits—lips slide
over all that. The medicinal
pollution of the body.

California, it seems,
is ungovernable. Its festival of
prisoners. Old flashbulbs. Always-cold
ocean. Every story is a slave
narrative. An escape or implosion.
I haven’t dyed my hair in

some time. Here, too, is complicated.
Pigeons and coffee—rarely tea. And I don’t
know what the birds are
like over there.

Big & rainbowed, maybe.