Month: April 2026

Good morning! This is Carl from Marketing USA!
How’re you doing today? I was on acid Fffine
as was Martha, whose gigantic Muppet smile
had started to fold. My boyfriend left two hits
on the counter when he went to work. Aw
I thought Martha with the feathered hair was
square but she’d been dosing since 3rd grade.
His bed was a parade float we piloted with our
minds, backs against the headboard, legs stuck
out like pencils, waving at people on the TV news.
It started out stupidly funny then morphed into
legit feelings of helpfulness like shoveling coal
in an engine to keep the talkers ringed in light until

the phone rang. Uhnho M said because she had
a fiancee and a graphic design job already lined up
and ambulances were dopplering all over Rochester.
But I picked up because people call on phones. That
was my free acid to the world, and I hope Carl won
a prize for all the questions we answered that wintery
afternoon. What’s your highest level of education?
One First grade? Yep. I passed the phone to
Martha, and she absorbed it. Rent No Yes One
million dollars I saw I’d underestimated Martha.
She was ballz deep and knew when to hang up.
I wished I’d high fived her more. I mean
I wished I’d high fived you more.

Mathias biking through pre-dawn Miami photographing graffiti and the waves upon the sand. Mathias crossing the MacArthur Causeway. Palms silent. Sleeping iguanas. Us chatting like we were in Brooklyn again and just leaving a reading. Unnamable Books. Park Slope. Another night in the dimly lit basement. The torn sofa. Amy, Cathy. Others. Or the tree-lined blocks of Carrol Gardens. Fawning over something Matt put together. Those days. Blood and beer. Distance and years. People we loved who didn’t make it. Lovers unloved. Loves threaded too thinly and pulled apart. By what? I remember when it felt like enough just to be young.   A pair of sneakers, an outstretched arm. Half- years crawl by. Just living a life. Whatever that is. Whatever that becomes. What do they say about the real ones. You just pick up where you left off. Joseph and I in Berlin. Mathias’ Monday, my Tuesday. Not so much a pause. More like the space between flipping a record over from one side to other. The needle perched and waiting. Mathias, there is barely audible static. The poem and its music.

I stand with fronds in my hands again
awaiting the tinge of dawn—
the first on the continent

It comes with a breakfast package
if you book early enough,
like spring three years before

But who am I to deny
anyone these expansive views
or cheap egg dishes on a forested island

in a diner nobody is likely to nuke
for the foreseeable mossy summer
What a gift these old-growth

woods are, these red-lacquered
low-slung chairs sprawled
endearingly in evergreen shade

so far east and north
that watching for whales shifts
the clock an hour

& the seabirds look at you
beckoning you to leap
from the side

to swim
out further
easter & easter

further east than the rising sun

the drugs are working and this
is what feeling feels like, flying
down the road, a solid color not
edged in sparklers or strawberry
dot me just awake and the o

cean out there Nope
but the drugs are working
like the ocean in a painting

We remember you from the before times 

a frog hangs all across all the trees her gray easter frock a wee bit slimy listen! the tree murderer who knocked on my door and said I hope you don’t mind that I cut down some of your trees and I threatened him with my lawyer like I could afford a lawyer but I look kind of crazy when I want to and I used the Voice on him so he now he’s down the hill starting all his engines his riding lawn motor his chainsaw his giant *rump emblazoned truck his leaf blower his John Deere tractor his excavator that lifts and separates like Jane Russell’s Playtex 18 hour bras christ can you imagine wearing one of those now Jane Russell makes me think of Ivory soap which smells like my father and makes me happy did Jane Russell fold time was it she who summoned the toads to my forest my easter house shivers in half light disappearing in and out translucent as the frogs sing their angry hymns and summon turtles to the pond I had a silver dress shot through with silver threads and my first pair of high heels and a silver clutch purse god I was stunning it’s sunrise I’m going out to plant some eggs

(a collage of some lines of you all’s, like I do every April)

This epic sprawl of largesse
In longhand

This mirror I once wondered
At

And the fire that lures
The heart that butterflies
The products in the cart

My little golden
Straddle plunder
Plotter

Asleep in silt
With the hand that holds
The hours that slow
This void of course
World without end

And then

Brooklyn seemed bigger than it was
Just like the amusement park

Fifteen minutes from my house
Where I splashed in the tide pool

While my parents took photos
At every age we’re small but

Don’t know it until we’re on a hunt
Arm in arm with a very best friend

We won’t speak to within five years
Trying to locate the party

Wherever it is, whatever it’s for
And whoever the heck is hosting

All we have absorbed is
It’s imperative that we attend

On a scale of ten       what would you rate      the weather     Emma walking in the rain

Scottland gray scent       of coffee coming      from somewhere         Family prefers tea

scones clotted cream and jam      Bright lights thick laughter       from another table

An idea of dinner    Wipe   the mushrooms clean of dirt     Slice   the mushrooms

Turn up the music          kid’s got homework      Turn down the music      kid’s got math homework

Turn off the music     kid wants sour cream               did you remember, 

Off to the store       for sour cream        Trench coats in earth tones           a bit of wind

Always pigeons     In a store with strangers        a voice in the head      An unplaceable melody