Michael Cooper: That Tight

                   above me shiver lilies I reach I reach]   I know what every person on the street

                                                                         corner knows—that to sell

                                                                         oneself

           what is this last whispered place between us

                          deep in her plaited tresses locked

                                          the aerials hum blue   in oranges, alms or as the Other

                                       on their wood pograms

                                      coppered mimes thrown

                                                memories across

                       headlights who educate the unwary   exacts the pound of flesh

          spent uncollected shopping carts loiter under    cupped carrion in the hands

                                the misplaced pine bending     cadaverous but we must alive lip wind sprint

                               the sidewalk cleats with its

                                                       roots rose     lithe-blooded we see

              until it speaks in clover between the sap

                    scoured sheets the follicles that leap

                                between us lurid lear taste

                                                         yes like

                             cold mac and cheese—again    I want to tear

                                                                       you out

                                                                       of that white

                                                                       collar splendor Hy Rise—drag you

                                                                       to the curb naked—pumped

                                                                       up on bath salts to be beaten

                                                                       by four Peace Officer’s

                                                                       and a malfunctioning taser—said not one dish

                                                                       washer ever—in fact

                              easy clingy and cold we feel     he’s more interested in keeping

                                                                       the skin

                                            the empty spaces

                         with our ribbed fingers fill up

                                                 paper lungs      on his hands   and   his   wedding   band   

from leaping into the sink, though she left him  some time ago.  But I will, Puritan.   

I want to see you face down in her crotch the moment the John leaves.  85% of you don’t know what I’m talking about— 

                                       have you ever sat on    noses in a job unhindered by foodless

                                                                      Detriot?  I want your family to shatter—sit you

                                                                      alone on a park bench at winter time singing     

                                                                      those carols

                                                                      you love

                                                                      so much

                                                                      hug those tears Presentless

                     a fire hydrant?  What does blood

       taste like licked from corrugated aluminum? 

                                                 At first dew  nothing for your children or visit friends

                                                                    with pity rimmed eyes but I

                          in the chimney—what was it

                              seeking? Rainbird controls   would give you a present: a memory

                  sequestered in their cement bunkers

      as empty as congress, with the traffic control   of the first lesbian kiss I ever witnessed, wet and

          so easily breached by drunken bumpers? 

                                               Paycheckless    groping at Starbucks. I would give anything to be

                                                                    that tongue, or to be held like

                                                                    that, just once.  That tightly.

 [your dark face lowers in the ice cube filled tub

Michael Cooper: gabbling cell

phones pissing out behind Bonaza gift shop on Sahara
street                an albino raven stoops
            on the Rhino’s horn

a black field about them smarts cross
bones               goosestepping in the vomitorium         bent

at the waste                  a young girl crows
ho and the feelawful     goosestepping in

the vomitorium            scale and slizzle                        The lizzard’s third eye
lid        nictitates          swivels goostepping in the vomit         O

rium ash           price slash and lyme        lye whiten this rhyme
goose stepping in the vomitorium                                            sunken
the casino light bulbs flash in sequence from a parched mouth
what did mom seek
among these reels and a crushed cigarette?                               Lipstickt
treasure in the desert new new york skyline scale eyeful tower Luxor death
cult tiny lady liberty get in line please one night only goose stepping 1$
 water bottle vendors misting umbrellas empty dessert trays discarded rib
bone the sexless showgirl goosestepping goosestepping a sphynx without
a riddle middles a Rabi a nun a gambler and a shrew duck duck goose step
ping in the vomitorium
                                                                                                  closed
captioned                     and ravenous                draw me closer until  
   the wring is all of us.