Elvis and honey and the beekeeper’s daughter
pin me like a leaf to this notion of you—

After the party—Nick waving wildly, men
exploding like soft wet fruit, ripe

enough and sweet—the walk home: 27th to 12th,
15 blocks past houses I think I’ve seen.

There’s a student of mine, screaming drunk
from the other side of the street, the bright side,

the Robyn side. If streets are gendered, they’re
either Nicks or Robyns, and the former (in the street-world)

never bristle at being called “avant-garde” or “feminist”—
I want to put quotes around every phrase, “like this,”

and honey to a bear and ferociousness go hand-in-hand,
and you, dear, back at Iowa, a dustbowl away,

a world of fruit and wheat. At 19th or thereabouts,
Josh says: “But you could take a chance at something better.”

And he means “something you,” he means “something there.”
“I’d prefer safe mediocrity,” I reply. And the buzzing

of the store-front neon sets me off on honey, daughters,
bad bears, fruit and bugs, and this night that doesn’t end

until Marci sees your picture on my fridge, now faded,
but still clear enough to prove you’re not a blonde.

Originally published in three candles.

We have become miniatures of ourselves,
or leering cartoons, bedecked and spangled
with garish blues and other colors from Korea.

The field behind your house contains mice.
The alley between my building and the next
glistens with bits of glass. I see them from my window.

Our kitchens may be similar—I don’t know.
Were we both too busy “being alive” to eat
a proper meal? My mother said so. She’s trustworthy.

You are not going to America. Or, I mean,
let’s go together in a boat of wattle and reeds,
a canoe made of Teflon and newspaper.

Ships on the sound. Or one ferryboat, one schooner.
All bodies of water call me out and frighten me
tremendously. Life is simultaneous—each moment

with each other. “With each other”—I put
these words in the purple book of tag-phrases
so I wouldn’t forget it, but sometimes I do.

Sometimes the most beautiful thing in the world
is simply whatever you see when you look out
the window: now: a discarded toilet, two daffodils.

Something about a flood, I know—
something about a nation.
Warrior, warrior. Oakridge High School,
circa nineteen-eighty-nine.
I touched her down by the river.
In February, we exchanged virginity.
By August, we both smelled
of others. I washed her down
by the river with Neil Young &
a ghetto blaster. Small brown one,
pardon the objectification,
but the de-materializer is broken.
I’ve tried to be luminous, but you
walk too long in the dark
and the filaments decay. Please,
curl on me. Stay until the Osage floods
the prairie. Take something. Take
the interstate. Take a stand. When
you look out your window what
do you see? Stand on your tiptoes and call.