Research

It feels like standing in an open, unmarked field.
There are no mountains towards which to head, no creek to follow--
someone flying overhead by chance or bumping my in an all-terrain
would never even distinguish it from the rest of the scenery.
But if you soak in this nameless territory long enough
you find landmarks in it. You chase a rabbit,
trace a vein of redder earth, consent to your body's natural cant
and thus make of your world a series of unstandard ellipses.
You can never know when you have returned to the same spot,
set by the obsolete signs of latitude, longitude. But there is progress.
The redder earth has been traced. Boundary lines have been drawn,
and even as they collapse on themselves, as they will, spectacularly,
you have already worn yourself a spot from which to watch.

Bring Back the World on a Popsicle Stick

Coconut banana,

dipped in fudge.

This lick

licks away

the gloomy thoughts.

This lick has

sunshine in it.

And this lick

licks away the ozone.

This lick is a lanced boil.

Puss.

Alley rocks in scabby knees.

The birds singing the ice cream man’s

jingling tune all day.

What kinda hoax is this?

Woodchips ain’t ice cream!

Tree bark’s got no sprinkles!

This lick is overpopulation.

This lick poverty.
Funny YouTube videos of people falling.

This lick has so many flavors I never tried before

I don’t understand what’s happening

on my tongue—doesn’t melt.

It’s a cantaloupe core

and gun powder.

Blood across a first-grader’s desk.

Lick away the tears,

the pop of a whiffle ball off a plastic bat

melts cold all over my gums.

Slurping up pesticides.

I like it when the whales get all slushy.

Are you sure this doesn’t have any high-fructose leukemia?

Too fast.

Brain freeze!

And the joke on this thing

isn’t even funny.

Hump Day

“Honey, I think it’s Wednesday again.”
“It’s always Wednesday.”