Life as an Uncast Spell

Magic hat, upend the rabbits. Somersault past the saw.

Someone turns and the stage is getting darker on itself.

Crackers for accident, crackers for the dumb bird.

Throw it all on the floor. We will dance like meteors.

In the aisles we step on everyone’s feet.

You can’t breathe on the way to the store

And it feels like kissing!

Like staring at women as a way to see myself.

I make a little bird to tell everyone but it dies or is lost.

Gracious catastrophe, so gentle on the ear—

For years I waited to turn into someone else,

Into a collection of looks from across the room.

What can I predict for our photons scrambling out?

We know so little of what sits above our necks.

The breath, spilling up from below, says

Time’s up, it has been years so move into the new verdant.

Meanwhile, I didn’t like anyone, stars cluttering up the day.

And now the floor is burning until it is atmosphere.

I don’t know if it is possible, but I’m wearing a dress all the same.

Tap a dove three times on the beak and its feathers fall out.

And it becomes a fable, a tiger with velvet eyes.

Hale

Just like in the art exhibit today, where everyone takes

            pictures of paintings to look through alone,

                        it only makes sense if you listen with one eye closed.

                                    Wet orange leaves. Windows that won’t quite shut.

                        If I had the cash, I’d send you samples of every plastic leg

            on earth. My friend and I once knew a guy named Cash.

He loved how she moussed her hair. And this wasn’t

            the eighties, it was two weeks ago. She’s the one

                        who made out with him until his girlfriend showed up.

                                    Maybe that’s what we’re doing here—speeding up until we glow.

                        Robots on the dance floor, we have tied our horses outside.

            What gallop, what comes from under the brush.

Sometimes doom appears in sequins. Not to mean

            it is someone in a dress. I mean doom is covered

                        in shiny purple circles sewn on by hand.

                                    You have to look close, for all the parts aren’t sharp.

                        My friend steps back over the sea and she pries boards

            from the house. I hold the nails. Little dangers, sleepy

charms. The rain cannot forget itself this fall.

            An outbreak of marsupials in the backyard.

                        Birds fall into the garden and decide to stay.

                                    Before, there was no before. Meanwhile, time is catching up.

                        Contracts as we approach the speed of light

            and finally I see. My dog is the color of gold leaves.

The leaves are the color of warm beer and I would

            like to make my voice a collage of axels and joints.

                        Overturned at the bar and the chair no longer sits.

                                    Hey honey I’m enough from the south to say slow down.