Event Horizon

Unattached
means

being in the supermarket
alone.

You hold the plastic shopping basket
on your arm,
letting it dig in 
and indent,
and you breathe
the air
from the freezers
and know

you are singular in this
universe. 

There are no strings
tied to you,
no weights
no homing beacons
to bring you back to
anyplace.

You are alone. 
This,
with the Muzak
and the dried-up
samples
of pre-packaged chip-dips.
This
is the singularity.

The point where I black hole
begins to be a black hole
and you notice all the stars
are getting sucked
in,
and there is nothing.

There,
that space
is you,
your body
in the frozens aisle.
Weighing bags of peas
with your hands.

And nobody is even remotely close.
The man buying taquitos
can't even touch you.

The universe is
telling you,
alone.

This is the end of the road
where nobody finds
but a few stragglers and
stray dogs.

The universe is dim
and quiet,
as you hum a little ditty
and shine the eggplants with
your dirty sleeve.

Death Without Dying

Driving home
on Christmas,
passing out of town,
out where the neon
of the truck stop was fading,

light bounced and dazzled
off the headstones
of the city cemetery.
Quick pulses like
heartbeats of bright white,
red and purple
as we drive off at 40
miles per hour.

The passing of people
not celebrating Christmas,
but their 21 grams float
as dust motes
past the soft bulbs
of Christmastime,
past the windows
of their loved ones,
round the table
with a halo of incandescence.

Driving home
I am confused,
moving on,
is easy.
Sleeping is 
a commitmentless
death.
And forgetting you
is like putting you six feet under.
The frost may not even touch your
toes, still, 
way down deep 
where I put you with love.

I am walking away,
bouncing like the light
of the graves.
Beautiful flashes of souls
in front of the TSA 
travel stop
and the Wheel Room
diner.
24/7.
To feed those souls
everyone forgot about.

I expect to see your face
in the frosted window,
sipping weak black coffee
from a cracking mug.
Runny eggs on your plate.

Instead I am forgetting.

Soon you will be the passing of 21 grams-worth
of dust
I breathe you in,
out again,
but don't choke on your being this time through.

I am full of dust,
full of the fragmented light
I am the dancing of stained glass
in the dark church windows.

Your face is lost in the pews.

I-5

Look me in the eye,
dammit.
I am trying to peel grapes,
or herd cats.
Driving through the snow
without four-wheel drive
and the radio playing
Christmas songs.

You won't talk,
you clam. 
Why are you such a salty
thing, why aren't you driving?

I am white-knuckling the 
cold leather of the steering wheel,
telling you please
be reasonable.
This isn't the end of the world.

Your hands are dry and cracking,
a little spray of blood on your knuckle.
Wish I'd done that to you.

This isn't over.
Your voice stony
and wavering.

The car swerves into the
thousands of headlights,
I take my foot off the accelerator.

Wilted

20.
and I brought them home,
paid the man a
hefty sum,
for the vibrant flowers
in the winter.

He smiled at me,
wrapping them with
extra tissue,
not crushing a petal
a stem.

20.
and I took them on the subway,
up to midtown
and home.

New Life Pt. 1

I keep a gun in the glove box
for times like these.

Times like in the movies,
these aren't the droids you're looking for,
and closing in on
"Welcome to the United States of America!"

I remember the songs my mother
sang in the doorway
of our falling-down house,
a home where
we cooked in the front lawn.

I remember the chickens running down the road,
if you could call our strip of
dry, cracked earth
a road, so elaborate to think,
in our village,
a road.

To where?
Out, they told me
in the stories I was told,
and I knew my father
was a migrant worker,
sending us letters
about the bounty of lettuce
and tomatoes.
He told us sometimes
he cried for the things
he couldn't send to us.
Living in a tent
of the bed of a rusted out
pick-up.

The summer dust blew up 
one year,
and father's letters had stopped,
our the mail had forgotten us,
I never knew.

In the night,
from the shadows came
what was only whispered in the daytime,
suicido 
her dangling,
dirty feet.
The earthen walls
fell in that day.

I learned to keep a gun.
Keep out the sadness,
and protect my brothers.

Baby

When you've been bad.
When you let the sink run
while you brush your teeth.
Letting yourself forget
about the images
of those children begging
for what you're letting
run down the pipes. 
The television set
in the living room 
moving mouths 
on mute 

The mirror has 
toothpaste spatters
you don't wipe away.

I wouldn't let you 
go downstairs, get out into
the snow.Wouldn't let you
touch the radiator.

The radio is staticky,
I let you stand in front of the 
gaping refrigerator 
looking for grapes that weren't there.
The fruit stands
are closed for the season.

When you've been bad,
I let you go.
Hoping you will come back.

Being

I'm standing with my arms full
cardboard boxes
soggy and collapsing,
somedays
strands of twisted twinkle lights
my arms lacerated
and quaking
in and out
of this plane,
this reality a funny thing
like television static.

I had no extra arm to adjust my
antenna, clear up the screen and
stop the shaking.
I have lost my vertical hold,
melting into the dented boxes,
the broken lamps
and twisty remains
I try to unravel
in my arms
with bleeding fingers.

One thing
I tug at and the
entire universe moves
under my feet,
threatening to topple me
a rogue wave out
of left field.
I am looking with all my eyes,
who's stealing bases
in my field?

This is where I'm rooted,
splayed feet all crooked
toes into a shifting fabric,
no footholds
in Mount Everest,
this is not a mobile
carnival rock wall
with fanciful grips.

Proverbial fishing and 
my hook pulled up the entire
sea,
I realize everyday,
there is nothing
but everything.

I hold water in my fingers,
let it go,
and I know it's still there,
98% of me.
2% is the knowledge of the other 
part. 

And so I am attached forever to the
soggy moving boxes,
the tangled lights,
one thing is really
everything.