The Reoccurring Imaginary Cock Dream I keep my mouth full of imaginary cocks, small and large ones. Around them my tongue curls and flips. I force them out in spit. I swallow cocks. Cocks lodge themselves in my throat along my tonsils. Sometimes I stare deep into my esophagus and see cocks embedded in the [...]
Entries from February 2010
February 25, 2010
Happy Birthday, Baby
Half a dozen servers gathered around Vince’s table and sang a jazzed-up version of Happy Birthday to him. There was a lot of hand clapping and stomping of feet. He shot his wife an I-thought-we-agreed-to-not-do-this-kind-of-crap look, but smiled at the singers. He politely said, “Thank you,” when they finished. One of them reminded him of [...]
February 22, 2010
To the Tree that I Followed for a Year
You are a stalk too high to climb or cut. Your branches hold basins of petrified ink which tell me nothing. I rely on the way you shift your bark in the wind, I rely on what I carve into you, whether it heals or not, whether you grow or not. You do not make [...]
February 18, 2010
anniversary
the interesting arm of the olive tree leans an elbow on the garden wall it’s a happy symbiosis the tree in its leaning has made an arch over the stone entrance to the garden the branch leans on the wall on either side squirrels use it as a bridge over the gate with flourish of [...]
February 15, 2010
Party
Sunny backyard of the not unpleasant upper working class one-story brick house. Scott’s tree house rotting and black, we’re barely able to walk on it. I’m there alone looking down on the party. Scott has turned four and some clouds are passing over the sun. From Scott’s tree house, I can see my house, old [...]
February 11, 2010
The Problem with Words
My first ex is angry with the second ex, and I am no longer in the middle, having stepped away from both sides, the second one having decided that I have been judged and found wanting. It is the second ex’s birthday, and it is a big one, a day that should be celebrated, excesses [...]
February 8, 2010
In the Post Office
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority it’s time to pause and reflect. That’s what the man with the milky mustache said to me that day in the sultry heat of the post office. It was early. Maybe 9:00 a.m. and already the flies were limping along in a drained glass of [...]
February 8, 2010
Making it through the holidays
is something like plodding up a flight of broken stairs, the metal underpinnings exposed. It’s useless to try and push time. Out of breath you stop for a moment recalling the litany of excuses why Sammy got sick at your Christmas party. Damn, he has the flu and now you have to call the parents [...]
February 4, 2010
The Pretenders
The Christmas tree looked as green as the day we put it up. It always would. Every year we pulled the box from the rafters and matched the color-coded branches to their correct positions on the metal trunk. Leftover tinsel from previous years only made our job easier. I was eight that year, so it [...]
February 1, 2010
ON A 40TH BIRTHDAY and ANNIVERSARY
ON A 40TH BIRTHDAY You remember presents piled high and tipping on the living room rug, noisemakers shooting perfect arrows of sound into the dining room where the table was wreathed by balloons, the cake enthroned in readiness, frosting so soft you could burrow your finger straight in, the day when everyone took notice, as [...]
