Ferrari
Mike’s dad
in his 1985
Ferrari 308
GTB has great
calves, and
everything
in their house
is so put together.
The samurai
sword in
the foyer
is sheathed
in black lacquer
and has tiny
orange tassels
around the hilt.
I spill a bucket
of red seeds
all over
the Florida
asphalt.
The blade
falls; a million
silver threads
evacuate
the theater.
I stand
like one dead.
These pink
clouds charging
in some Deco
fascism lay
a blade over
my heart.
Later,
the little
woofers smiling
at my temples
play Carmina
Burana and
the band of
sapphire coast
folds itself
into a ring.
I dream
of passing
through
that hole
where rainbows
in Pumas
play hearts.
A zombie,
I stood
captive,
the bubble
of “accident”
swelling
my throat.
The world
stopped.
It takes some
feeling
to become
a criminal.
It takes
a ward
to become
a word. Never
again. Now
whom do you
serve? Who
moves you?
Whose will
is yours?
Pom-Pom
We were
making
pancakes
in the parking lot
and you started
singing
morning stars
back to me
and I started
laughing
and said stop
I don’t have
the energy
I can’t
take it.
The sky
was blue
and it was cold.
I said do you
remember me
talking to Isaiah
about how
saturated
means seen,
like the sun, blond
and blackening?
You said
ocean, as
if dragging
a bar of steel
across the beach
to smooth
the sand.
I said
horseshoe crabs
with their
masks upturned
and thousand
legs shivering.
There were
smokestacks
in the distance,
we were
a family,
I played with
the other kids
across the street.
I could say
a world
was here,
but today
the pit bulls
trot like souls
down the sidewalk,
keeping us
reverent.
I begin
again, I
break,
the cold
magma comes
in flaky handfuls.
I sit and think
I was thought.
I started
walking then
with another
vigorously
down the path.
Death of the self
is a long,
tearless night,
and the grills are
bright, the day
cold. You were
a song, you had
a father, you have
a name. But
the ocean,
what could
it be, sun-
mingled,
eternity
like a razor
blade in a
glass? Pass
forward and gather
your eyes. Who
could marvel
that such sympathy
has come to you?
Who could we
name to name us,
what merciless
flowering could fall
forth to clear
the day of its
letters? O
Child of
the Sun,
listen,
the word
begins again
with you for
the last time,
so give it all
you have because
there is only
this chance,
wrapped
in infinity
like a strip
of bacon.
I mean
everything
you ever
suspected
and all
you can’t
imagine
is real.