1.

We were molecules. Isotopes, I suppose,

ex ploding in the winter

night in flurries

like snowflakes beneath streetlamps

ghost orchids over pond water.

2.

We caught lightning bolts

on the front lawn of your childhood

home. We kept them in mason jars,

and gave them all easy names

to remember. 

They   jumped and crackle d

clinked against

the glass like crickets.

     One night, we set them free

     and they breakdanced!

     across the blackest sky

     golden chalk on the blackest board

     scribbling their names in diagonals like someday

our children might do. 

Digestion 

*

 There is a nothing I want to see from

what the giants call Envelope Mountain. We wait

with open arms and feet and heads and anything else we feel

we can open like a vending machine. My mouth is

a lake bottom seaside shore boring into escalators

that probably stopped working months ago.

*

 1.  We split open like the moles underground, making

cities that span entire continents in decade

old drifts and soft soil beds.

These moles are an inspiration to us, they build things

like we would build them if we had any courage. 

*

2. On the second floor balcony, I see

my zombie daughter with a traffic cone resting

on her skull, I don’t want to, but I throw her overboard. 

I had no other choice, is what I tell my real

daughter, the daughter that is still with me.

I think she understands, but she isn’t here to say.

* 

3.  We don’t sleep well with what we’ve done. 

We don’t sleep well at all.

 *

In certain yoga postures I’ve forgotten what it tastes like to be an animal,

salty and fiery red with algae deposits.

* 

There are thousands of opportunities I am losing all the time.  Here

are the things I am not doing

right now: my laundry, the upright bass, digestion.

 *

We are human, and probably not

afraid of that anymore.

All Day, I’ve Hoped

*

I’ve been dreaming about hot air balloons

a lot lately. They’re mostly colorful.

Some of them explode, sometimes. Last

night, you and I sat cross-legged in a wicker basket,

and pretended to be unafraid. Crowds

of onlookers applauded and cheered and hoped

we might catch fire.

We rose and rose for days and days

until it began to snow

and the frostbite set in.

*

When you gathered the courage

to peek over the basket’s edge,

what is it that you saw? 

*

All day, I’ve hoped it was giants.

Everything Below the Arctic

*

We were exploreres of the arctic

and everything below the arctic.

*

In ‘85, our plane went down

over frozen jungles.

We crashed and camped

in our frozen fuselage, surrounded

by frozen mountain lions.

*

We ate each other to stay alive.

The mountain lions ate us, too.

We laughed about that later.

*

Afterward, I took you back to my place.

I said, “I am a flipbook. An old projector.

You are my thumbs.  My off white bed sheet.”

*

We laughed so hard

our breath warmed the tundra.

*

I dusted blizzards from your hair.

*

We were explorers of the arctic

and whatever is below the arctic.

We never found much.

*

You discovered a rundown fruit stand

peddling mediocre oranges

and overripe legumes.

*

I discovered a metaphor

for love, probably.

Saturdays pt. 4

She tells you the city

is a wilderness with concrete trees.

You believe her.

Her smile is shredded bark on a ponderosa pine.

When she laughs, it sounds like grizzly bears.

She loops her fingers, whistles for a cab.

I wrote this exquisite poem with a girl named Chelsea. She was pretty nice.

Exquisite Astronaut pt. 2

outer space is composed of concrete blocks

sidewalk chalk drawings of infinity

It looks like hands

stained by smears of moon dust

I want to hold space rocks

where my teeth once were

we are all dentists as far as nothing is concerned

pulling teeth from many mounts

leaving gaps in the atmosphere of

nebulas and space dust and pleasant personalities

it’s hard to breathe with so much air

Saturdays Pt. 3

OUTER SPACE is like

the wilderness, the girl says,

only quieter.

She breathes. I can hear it

fogging up her bubbled helmet.

She’s right, I think.

In space,

everyone is always whispering.

Saturdays Pt. 2

The girl I meet

on some sidewalk on Saturday says,

we are all astronauts, she says,

OUTER SPACE is composed of

concrete blocks and sidewalk chalk drawings

of infinity.

She shows me how this would look,

infinity with her arms.

It looks like she is swimming.

This story took 2nd place in the 10th annual Fiction 101 contest, run by the Boise Weekly.

The Fog

Every autumn, mayflies paint our city black. They fog the streets, blanket every building, every wall. Sam tosses a tennis ball against them. Their bodies crack. Wings stick in the fuzz.

At dinner, Sam butters corn, stares at the empty seat where Dad used to be. Mom chews cauliflower, tries not to do the same. “We’ll be alright,” she says. “Of course we will. Finish your broccoli.”

Later, me and Sam count mayflies through our window. The air’s thick with them, can’t see much else. “Where they coming from?” Sam says. I shrug. “Don’t matter. Soon enough, they’ll leave us alone.”

we’ve been gone longer
than what was never here
bathing suits, combat boots
washed up
on ocean shores
on frozen snowbanks
bare feet kick 
blizzards over them 
blanketing what we aren’t with what
we’ve become

This story won grand prize a few years ago in the Fiction 101 contest, run by the Boise Weekly.

Billows

If not a monster, then something close; our grandfather lumbers around the house like a B-movie Frankenstein, swearing up storms at misplaced Tonka trucks, his skeleton creaking and groaning like an antiquated arm chair.

You boys wear a coat or catch a fright, he says.

It’s too goddamned cold, he says.

And stop pissing in the cat lady’s yard. After sandpaper kisses, we see his frame by the fire, burnishing his belt buckle with a threadbare handkerchief. We whisper, our breath expanding then dying in the January air, leaving clouds like ghosts.

Through the window, we search his neck for bolts.