the only lights local,
                                     you cant get through,
unlike the old lodge burning on the highest point in 4 washington counties,
step on a can in alabama wake up a kitten in saigon,
use a phone and throw it away,
                                                    these hands were never mine, three hours in a laundromat,
find an unlocked car and sit in it.;
                                                          when winter seems like home—
feel the wind inside our marrow, an impenetrable vortex,
                                               providing us recognizable music, cows in four part harmony



2)
im given the boxes and broad parameters about where to scatter them, randomly choosing
between sites I sense are secure, knowing nothing of where I drive.

                                                                  I know where the bagels are buttered.
                             a town on the coast where 85% of the locals are smokers.
not far from the famous speed trap,        yes those numbers move,
                                   for 80 bucks you can spend a night inside a pile of oyster shells



3)
the joys of here, furniture in tune with topography,
I wont live anywhere that hasn’t been underwater,
I always look where the trees arent pointing,
as long as I hear engines im at ease, attentive,
I could skip two houses and be in the street,  could be seduced by azaleas in winter,
wasn’t long til 5 cats were sitting with me on the driveway,
the audubon volunteer assured me all hummingbirds migrated south so what can they be,
                                   adapted to curling bark and the inverted anger of grass
                   finally getting the rain it demanded but losing the sunshine it couldn’t afford

the bad weathers from the ghosts of christmas trees, where theyre bought & where theyre grown,
I have an orchard of foot high apples trees, I have a silo made from an oatmeal box,
the only constant is chickens, providing insulation the way the cows below us bring atmosphere

these mountains remember:  sonorous aurora of wind knapping stone,
chipping away the teeth of clouds, the hibernating rains,  the warp of lightnings impulse,
when the undulating hills are this warm some moisture will result—
a thick dew,     a second skin fresh down the mountain



4)
cities are where dead things come—salmon, beaver, timber, business, politics.
we cant all be pyramids. we live higher up with nothing to mow or feed.
where their bus died they settled on 10 acres. you dont choose a house
you reach into the bag of now, markets are the constructs of abstract money,
as if a third of my body doesn’t have bones only momentum and belief
the investment of habit,
                                       I didn’t think the door would close that easily
when I fell asleep I had no idea the room would move.

its perfect here, milky way at night, with one microscopic cacophony of neon
halfway eclipsed by the petrified wind, so I know its still now in america

---

the city around me pulls apart, as if a three dimensional jigsaw, exposed fingers unclasped
and only i roll through un-pulled     poled      pawed
                                                                                   my wallet confirming my location
parallel threads occasionally pulled into conflict,       probability strings—
i don't know what my guitar is made of, plucked with mental intention
split for fishing rods,     lashed to support a hundred families.
a table made from a single blood cell,      edible furniture.

sometimes the rain must leak to benefit the house; each escape is a trade-off,
each change in currency effects fashion, ways to make any face seem 2-dimensional,
5% taken from my pay check for future cosmetic surgery
when windows are eyes and chimneys noses, architects striving to make houses
that cant be mistaken for anything else—wombs,      nests,      bus shelters,
                                                    minivans without wheels,         the box from a giants refrigerator,
                                                              abandoned beach houses turned into prisons,

                                        if our roof is flat something should be growing there,
hidden courtyards no human has stepped in for decades lush with rodents and birds
all the scenery pulls away and where am i,     my car pulled away,     perhaps my body as well
but not me, the seeing and thinking about, the music from a block away

II

evaluating something by how it pulls apart, a different way to get where we started
cabbage      bread dough      remagnetizing a car so parts repel each other,
giving a family member a new personality then seeing what happens around him,
past facts on new strings, light from three directions, audience above

i ride my horse into a town that surprised me. i can tell by how folks stare at me
that i don't look like myself, not familiar from experience but from tales, from transplanted memories, from pictures by an unknown hand
                                                          the smell stays until the sun wanes.
i open all the windows to the moons photonic wind—we did not come here to hesitate.
each resistance another rung to full muscular blossoming.

                        buddha could lift an elephant with his serenity.

what i noticed means im foreign. what i say is a script and fluency i must trust, unknown in origin.

                                                                                    that cant be a mirror in front of me

III

think of a body as bondage;      think of a city as an incubator.
as if being 10 or 100 feet higher when you sleep will free your dreams from street level
i want a city where i can jump between rooftops.
the biggest dangers cant climb stairs.  alligators on elevators.
how fungus can works its way to bob dylans heart.

i inhaled so much that year i didnt breathe again til april
i felt radiant as a map of a place no ones been.— antarctica de-iced
after the world's magnetic reversal—too many people south of the equator,
too much waste hidden in the open.
                                                             our skins will be the first to adapt.
think of your body as a car. totally stock, after-market enhancements,
not just pills but imagery,      conviction.      that's me in the commercial.
i want to buy blue sky         i want a sunlight dispenser inside my ribcage.

as i run the sidewalk collapses beneath me.
i fall into a tunnel but see myself on the surface     see every angle of stairway.
carved sticks that fit together into a sphere of changing relationships.

from rain to brick.       from tree to airplane.

no one will sneak through this wall.      no one can float in when youre seven stories up
or buzz me to open the door.      multi story condos wrapped in white plastic
make me nervous about whats really inside:

                                                                        city is a collage,        a mutual agreement,
                                      a moment frozen in mime,         since i never get close enough to go in,
                                              car tuned to destination,            where im authorized to reappear

        city of implants         city of bottled water         city where no ones outside for long
                      ask for directions to another city.         hold your breath til the speedometer says 35.
            that red lights not for you.

---

spine goes round
like a finger no ring will permit
smiling where the legs join
two cymbals with the same idea
to take the bones from the evening sky
bubbles of frozen air, beads that died last century
neither I or the lariat is spinning — a mouth of dust throws the calf on its side
bright colors gash my cheek without glasses
an unfocused faucet, a clock that cant add
losing its way after hours
each bus with an extinct mammals face

inside the pigeon is a lunch in many wrappers

for my birthday I slept in wax paper & was fed by angels
waiting for the next meal in the shape of a dry stick, skin curled into itself
with the suns unspeakable name in tatters
I don't choose, I divide, using only peripheral vision
so the world spheres away from me like orange peels refusing to collapse
when winter moves into fall, when brown leaves jump back into connection
all because of this special cream thats replacing my skin, my tongue
like two fingers with multiple joints moving in to test the floor,
strengthening my neck by jumping at the ceiling

I concentrate my breath into a glistening chapatti but what to wrap around—
an unforgettable flavor, a bitter pill, something that reminds me of you,
of that night with extra hours tween dusk & dawn like changing coasts without moving,
trying on several outfits while everyone watches the body im getting used to, suddenly arrived,
check the molecular pressure, yes its better with six fingers per hand

the rhythm of the penis
as it trills along the spine
barely fitting tween the hummocks
with so many nerves to choose among