Realtime Babies

laughter 



laughter drains down the wall
and puddles on the floor like
tired engine oil.  no, like 
rain that’s labored over the coast range,
only to be blasted up in the air by the cascades,
themselves scraped off a plate like the dinner we couldn’t finish
because we felt the plates slip sullenly beneath our feet,
as the moon sluggishly drifts further out in the night.

between your breasts 
rain and honey
long for the dark night
when i reach 
for your breasts in the moonlight.

                
    
            

                       — oakland
                           july 2017

i once jumped 



i once jumped out of an airplane.
yes, i was with others who all thought
the air would save us, even though it had no
eyes and hands to hold us tight and close,
loving each of us who dared to trust the
ropes and cloth that could have been laundered
and folded neatly by some woman who 
never watched television or ate pizza.

i asked many times but no one told me 
about the little dog inside me who fell out the window.
we barked and howled, but not all the way down.
there was no siren, no alarm bell, only the
grassy hills and an arrow pointing at something.
i don’t remember anymore at what, just like the 
professor down in front trying to explain something.

i was wearing a white jumpsuit, and i
made sure to use the outhouse often enough
so that the jumpsuit wouldn’t change colors at the sudden
mad moment when i let go of the strut 
and saw the wing get smaller and smaller. 
the wind nearly blew off my glasses.
i now know why paratroopers in the movies yell “geronimo!’ 
when they jump -- so no one hears the little dogs bark. 

i think i saw a white flower when i got done with
falling. i looked around to make sure i wasn’t on fire. 
later i heard tall grasses tell their adventure stories. 
it was so long ago the trees don’t remember 
how many times i looked carefully at the dirt
when i practiced dying. 






            — oakland
                 july 2017

​instead of transportation
 
 
 
miserable radio eyestrain
minus violent hope
admits respect, 
 
her dancing eyelids
hate her
begonias,

her velvet inferno
lacerates every
astrolabe kiss.