At first, the bicycle reminds her of her father folded
into a paper airplane. Her mother is much shorter &
already resembles a science book. The wadded-up
inter-tube could be a cave or kick stand depending on where
you sit in the audience. The spokes are her heart &
both could are beginning to rust. The handlebar never
takes a number but is still seated first. The two
fenders believe in chastity, at least on paper.

The script calls for passing trees to spring out of
states of mind before changing into telephone poles.
Potholes are required to memorize street names. Rain
can only fall in another part of town. But even after
she's read her lines, it's still hard to believe in
a bike path, especially one that was not conceived in
a warm place like us. Anyway, I don't buy the notion
that the simple act of leaning against a chain link
fence is suppose to be some kind of signal, alerting
the queen that if she shaves her lullaby before dusk
there's a good chance it will never grow back.

then lay out my struggle iron with no ransom note
built to shine 
                     Or 

maybe get my bomb up a hollow tree so bark with your
freak whip mouth fur behind moonlight's steamy window
about to ricochet 

                     Or 

in a rooftop summing up the rollercoaster of my 
rope to slide the cooler door to wide-open be stud 
& hot enough to melt a knee size tens dangling off 
a diving board to seesaw with your fingerprints all
over my tool box if I were a bumblebee to scotch 
lube traces never trifling a remedy & careful not 
to paste blossoms all over the brand new upholstery.

Larger than life is reduced to just a
big traffic jam. Blooms falling from
their stems. A crumbling curb. A vacant
lot. Heat from blue gas. The path of
eyebrows. Chills running through the
alley. Camp fires. Straw pillows. Dust
on a thousand car hoods. Four kinds of
smut. Green tomatoes. Red balloons. The
way breathing works. Slacks or trousers.
Muscles in a neck. Survivors on a raft.
A mask. Duct tape. Clouds the color &
shape of seals. The oils & essences of
softness. Velour shirt. Velvet throne.
A place where the curtains part. Snake
eyes. Lizard tongues. Substituting small
pebbles for rare gems. The false safety
of formality. Kudzu creeps. Water seeps.
Rain falls & falls. Or ends in sparks.
Having no memory of the splashdown.

Starlight flaming down a furry hallway.

Planets that pass close behind airplane routes. A
whole sub-division of memory wading through water.
Candy chasing down an ambulance. Do sailboats have
skin? When does sweetener become sweet? A one-room
dwelling occupied by two persons. Winter upholstery.
Simmering saucepan. "The dough can be shaped with
your hands," she says, her smile already set on
pre-heat. "Yeah, and a weevil could set up a home in
the likes of this bread box," I reply, making myself
busy with the fly-buttons. Nautical books. A whole ship
of meaning. Wondering where pigeons go at night...

a glass receptacle (as in cup or jar)...
or maybe try correspondence by mail.

A tide arching under a limp night sky.
A part of the wall below the picture frames.

Passing through Palm Springs in a sandstorm on empty.

Or maybe as long as it takes to live a hundred pages.

Then later, the lakeshore
laps in & out of a coma until all the love & combat
in the world is required to wear a raincoat over its
lips. In an attempt to help, a hand draws clouds on a
blank sheet of white paper over the real face. But a
splash disrupts the stillness, causing muse to become
a sponge-bath. And that fistful of air you thought was
her blouse turns out to be a rainy night in Georgia
trying to pass itself off as a mud puddle. The swarm
of flu you thought was a snot rag or maybe trapped in
the refrigerator of your pocket, settles as fog thick
enough to shut down the sea, or even worst, the loose
jaw of a sunroof, drunk & passed-out beside the reek
of a drainage ditch.