blastedgoat

Feet pound erratically on uneven stairs that I take at top speed, flashing a jagged key, twisting an oval knob, heart racing past a pile of summer shoes. I bolt the door behind me. This reminds me of a recurring dream I had when my window overlooked Broadway and the train tracks. The creature was snarling with black matted fur and cold eyes. I pushed my brother inside and saw it going for my mother. Her foot caught on a stair and she fell forward. Someone inside slammed and locked the door. I stared through glass and screen. I saw my mother’s eye disappear down the dog’s throat. I tried to scream and move. I tried to shake the bed. I saw the ceiling and heard a familiar voice.

i am envious of the lens that saw him moments before he died–

he smiled. kids rolled down hills, their screams were the things of dreams…

i tumble and feel wet grass, growing around his gravestone, a place that marks

the letter sealed inside. words eaten long ago by worms–scorched on a sidewalk,

split in half for the world to see what’s inside him and inside me.

nothing feels right

until i watch this tape.

i can’t be sure how many times i have been half expecting to see him

turn a corner.

instead he floats further down river…

i never saw him, i wasn’t there when they pulled him from underneath a bridge

after days of searching and seeing dated photographs

on the channel 7 news. i didn’t see his smile, we never kissed at all…

a picture someone gave me after your funeral makes my fiance jealous,

jealous of bones and a seven-year-old-conversation late in to the night

one summer i spent the night at home alone.

trees bend and wave, flowers remind me of running

through bushes with purple bunches, floral and lush until

the snap–a swing-set unmovable-cemented haphazardly

in the backyard with all its knobby trees and rotten leaves.

apple-core eyes are smokey and coiling under an invisible

chain-link fence for dogs, cutting the bandit’s neck staining

bare feet like crab-apples–ghostly presence in the long

shady patches of lawn… a black cat crosses a toe-headed boy.

he stretches his stubby fat fingers and yawns as a woodpile

splinters, sparks, and burns to the ground.

I say this, but to you it means that or worse, nothing.

A tree obscures a power-line, fried potatoes tower
over trembling pieces of yellow corn. Tassels grab
clouds that rip. Contents pour, orange juice scum
lingers on the lips of a tall glass. Stringy pulp tastes
a bit like the dream I had after falling asleep to the radio:

A boy I adore lies beside me on a floral couch,
leaning in as his girlfriend watches television.
He tries to hold my hand where she can’t see
before we kiss I hear a buzz and am sucked into

another scene… I wander hallways wondering
where everyone went. I find them being served
hot meals behind open stall doors of a crumbling
elementary school bathroom: chewing in unison,
flushing between bites. It is only now that I realize
I have lost all ability to tell time. Stop. Before you fall

and break your concentration, straining for understanding,
teetering on a rickety step-stool somewhere near the Z’s…

I find myself reading this back wondering where it all went wrong…

I unholster my gun
to become my hero
and his hero
and his hero’s hero—

Pull the trigger
and write another fucking poem.

Maybe we’ll get lucky and we’ll both live again
Well I don’t know, I don’t know…

The best things in life are black & white:
chessboards, old movies, piano keys,
chocolate & vanilla ice cream twist cones
from 4 Queens, the dice you found on
the sidewalk, even the King of Pop.

“Who knew when they made that Simpsons
episode that Jack-o would turn into a white
guy if you kept him out past midnight.

Speaking of the Simpsons and pedophiliacs,
I’ve seen episodes older than you are.

I would be a hypocrite for telling you I never
slept with anyone eight years older than me.

At least now I sleep at night knowing they found my
dead boyfriend’s body after only a few days of looking.

That summer I put off reading the next Harry Potter, I didn’t
want to associate the two but it turned out I do anyway.

DON’T WAKE UP he’s running into the house to grab her jacket.
She examines ruby-red mary-janes and flashes green eyes in the mirror
He returns to her, engine purring, she’s old fashioned, crisp as candied
apples. His foot drifts off the pedal…the convertible takes a hard corner.

Bright are the stars that shine,
dark is the sky, i know
this love of mine will never die…

Tall trees pulse with jagged scars
against a grey and static sky. She snaps
a picture as they begin to spin,
a flashcube exposes tangled necks
hanging from the rear-view mirror.