Two Poems

Vacation Plans Coffee or water I am dried by fire smoked meat fat gelatinous something on my plate get it off get it off in the morning. If I close my eyes I might never paint and display myself. A natal body looks like tucked ask. It’s Monday. Eyes runny from wild fires’ hazy end of summer— us wheezing for rain. It’s not coming. We dress in beige and slate and shave our heads because apocalypse. No horse this race. Canoe thru lily pads no frogs or otherwise full of bees and they will sting. We sent them out through the windows. No more bees in the bathroom. Why the extermination. In any case a hidden orchard that I did not find with apples, cherries, pears and, beyond it, plums in season. Homestead roads made trails and man-made lake for generations to enjoy. Digging holes with a burn ban made fire and sat with guitars, cars circled abortive attempts. Rough minutes spent scrubbing meat in a slightly sylvan setting. Wolf pack challenges at happy hour. Sweet, sweet sleep. When it is work to breathe you know you’re in trouble. Not so interesting as the Middle Ages nor will it last for hundreds of years. A blessing with limbs heavy like a sodden tree’s. As if a yawn cracks the skull. Lacrimose yearnings. On the drive back, a dead yearling despite slow traffic. I can’t and I won’t. How I might eat patience, sing a doo-wop song about it. OK, I’m all about that money. It’s sitting on my stomach like an anvil taking a train to Vancouver. Sighs I could drink more than doubt would help. When you need a vacation. When you’ve lost a key bungee cord. When you’ve found a bark flake that looks like a moth wing or vice versa. Put behind glass so no one can perform the proper identification. I am not an impartial scientist. Excruciating but fine faith does process letters on the screen. Just scratch until the whole screen is black, shake, and start a science fair project. Build a mandolin or wash tub bass and study. Power a whole city with the rage of being interrupted. What is passing for a parachute of play under colour past the face and up above the head and back down. What it’s like to be pre-born on the playground. Orange is the colour of origin. Not flattering, but warm enough. Explaining a volcano to a child —it’s all waking and being cranky or dormant. Every song begins with “I don’t know ... ” a pit with time and, no, dysplasia? It feels like some odd industrial district with cats to catch vermin. And dogs to guard it. Quadrupedal security ops and spontaneous fermentation. Hyperbaric chamber for a girl to call home. Or having fun out in the world watching backhoes and conveyor trucks and jackhammers. Hands over the ears holding the pulse in. Parental duress passed to offspring through genes dry humping. Get pregnant that way. A door cracked off its hinges. Play a harmonica and pound piano keys—inhibitions are pulled yarn in the rug sunset. Red orange yellow black sun silhouette. When are we going to get there we’ll never ever get there. So much is just endurance.   Confession Half a ghost, ghosting about. Hair spinning coiling re- member of dead family. Floral arrangements very cut—Cut all my hair off and save it for art. Edit incorrect usage to introduce error. Goddamned sense. Drunk possible toddler. Fulfilling even jazz blast right on a work night. Sleep weekend because hate plans. Because actual time is a particular kind of music. I’m trying indiscriminately. Pressurized canister of air comes out freezing. Liberal use is recommended. My body feels quaky. Hyper-focused on noticing split ends. Afterimage of a lightning strike that might just be or a car turns quickly onto another street at night, the headlights. Summer spent camping with God be done. Done this day crave whole milk a long walk on the heath. Stare blank at indifferent vistas. Avoid a world where people. I’m passing for a normal. External signifiers common to an outlier. Assaults happen in bathrooms who take pride in being common? My son belies plate tectonics. Perhaps. It’s a significant luxury. Don’t underestimate mitigation, minimize a neutral self-esteem with personal growth rubrics. Erect a mixed-use development land use action. You are an orangerie in me. Anemic together flat string matrix conundrum. Holographic communication was only ever entertainment in cahoots. Spectacular tripping kindergarteners sing arias, think calculus. If only breasts be genius, God damn it. Rot your body, or your body rotting. A luxury of occasional incompetence. Not one prodigy, famous person, minion, peasant, farmer, teacher. Small picture singing landscape out of context—trees and a body of water so blurry scenery. It’s Wednesday. Jesus God addicted to willpower to exercise. The old marshmallow test. Acceptance being sometimes a scandal. The sexiest thing I do is conjugate. Stoppage time injured fixations type and type and barely blacken the page. What if I had to speak the words to get them there? Lips are concrete hurdles. Concrete. Enjoy it like to listen to cardboard boxes pretending they’re boats and the ground is recalcitrant water. I swim upright like I’m walking, but wear a real life jacket. Verisimilitude is necessary to compensate for a reality that is lacking. The past tense of a magic so ghost, but dead meat. Going to the river to eat a staghorn fern older than grandpa. Stolen.