of piled packaged foodstuffs,
lends me a moment for

unpacking before
tumbling from the chair:

a butterfinger, a loaf
of bread, cans and cans

of coke and beans and
spam.
I waited in my car

for rain, calling
a fool from his cave to spill

his spoils onto the oily
pavement. I’ve taken

that path before.
Still I
choose paper, no frills, from

among unnatural
cohorts, the thin white

plastic grips cut too far
through my fingers.

I pack the easyopen pouch,
pushin-pullback box,

insertstraw carton, EZseal
bag and twistoff bottle into

brown dry skin to biodegrade
in someone else’s kitchen.

Taffy and
Caramel cornball

Swinging around center.
Goo stick skin hot

Carnival pull back
Diesel smell.

Sitting at the bottom
Lick sweet fingers

Taste better white
Explosive corn mouth

Roof. Butter burnt
Ferris brings wheel

Back up good feel
Swing down sound of

Quarters hitting
Floor. Again to

Earth back wondering bean
Bags in a clown mouth

Honking pipes. Cold
Fireworks and sno cones

Shaved back on my heels
Ignite the sky kind of

Happy up on wheel
Ferris top and around.

Red Blood Cells
, i heard her say,
Come from eating
Too Many Carrots.

At the center of the
tissue roll
is an eyeglass

to extend my eye
toward spiders
on the bathroom wall.

Think about this, old
shoe, pinned to the floor by my sole
, where would you be
if I walked on my hands (
and where, I

ask, would you be if I
traded you in
for a bright black camero
). you sat

in the window of my
station wagon, pretending not to turn
pink in bold stripes.
you held

mud, you held mold
, you held my feet although I danced
, drunk, the music
spilling over rubber legs
, faithfully

laced tight until
broken, then spliced end to
end with a knot
, now laces pull up

short
, plunging my
foot into you, my fancy pink
pig flying through the expanding hole.

Chappy’sMcNary, or
Registration, fivethirty, dinner, sixthirty
Babysitting provided.

Stockholms who
Transactbusiness wi
The Pendleton off
Hate, and elecdirectors
To servon the localboard
Your currentboard follows—

RobertLaz, PilotRock, Cattle
PeterMacEngott, Ione, Wheatcattle
*GunTerjson, Helix, Wheatbarley, canola
*ToRgg, PilotRock, Cattlehay
ByanWofe, Hermiston, Cattlepotatoes, corn

The nominating comm
iNate the follow,
Holders forth
ExpIring tERms—

KaySon, Pendleton,
Cattlewheat
DanMills, Stanfield,
Mint, canola, corn

Return the enclosed RSVP card
By February Twentyone
If you plan to attend.

Camille is a wet-dog woman. She smells
like puddles of oil. She sits under
a tree heaving pine cones at passing cars.
‘Camille Loves No One,’ is carved into the tree.
Beneath it is carved, ‘Camille loves many.’

She steals a law book from the library – 
Missouri Reports – and hides it
under her bed like pornography.
Humor is not lost on her, but she seldom laughs.
It embarrasses her that her body
could become so out of control that it would buckle.

Her shallow eyes reflect only the darkest
shades of light. She is a secret man
, a private pervert. Her lower back
aches and she feels as if she could walk.

A man has his two-armed grasp on her.
He is tall and wide and carries himself
like a serious freakshow. It is his
process she loves – his guts and odor. Camille writes
his name mantra-like on notebook paper.
He calms her like coffee so she can sleep.
He watches her closely.

He idolizes Camille – creating She-whom-he-
Wishes-to-be – to hold himself within himself.
He searches for her into – her hidden front door,
a hole through which he might jimmy the lock.
He finds his name written on notebook paper – like
a grocery list – and wonders if he will always
fit her, or even

if he does now.

We received our names

Sleepy and Kiev and Eisenhower,
He’ll kill himself on that bike,
And Les, two-step,
Walks one back,
Two forward, his head
Tipped toward giant water

A boy tightly lives there in his
Sister’s clenched hand. Pipe smoke
Swirls around us, and
Air, thick as dust

We each have our thieves, our
Rivalamerica, we swipe our
Bread through hot beef stew

Tiny gravel
Fish, gold eyes of saint Jym
High school chum,
Mud colored drink,

Is dreamed of,
Is touched,
And we are sure to have it.

The only child of his middle daughter
was the toe-headed boy so serious
that his smile meant something
besides the affliction of happiness. To cheer him
he said, “you’ve got your ears on backwards,” and
the boy giantly said, “no, you do, you do.”

So it was. And they each pickaxed a rock of licorice
from a black brick of licorice, and sucked
on the hard stuff as if there was no more to be had.

And the only child of his third daughter
was running from room to room, bouncing on the first
cushion in sight, bounding out of grasp and motioning
for somebody to join him.

And the only child of his first daughter
was running away again into the pasture beyond
the barn. He stood beneath the clouds and
decided rain, so he wouldn’t go far in case he
must return in a downpour

And the grandfather wondered, amazed,
if this might be the last
day before winter, and if there would be one
more apple pie to be had, and if these children
could ever know him as he had learned to know
his long dead grandfather.

The licorice slivered,
the flavor remained.

At the exit station
there’s a graying workman
leaning on the gaspumps
and smoking a filterless cigarette

, his shovel leaning beside him
, his hand cupped against the wind.
He sometimes uses the hai
karate from the coin-op in the men’s room.

He and his two hispanic
helpers keep us from asking
for bottled water, and instead
we drink cold Coors

and return to the road.