Poem-A-Day #338 : Sleeves

Sleeves

Tendons snap like the old rubber bands by the sink - that gray in the light - that pull just enough to make it look like the job will get done then -

no

I look at the man in line at the coffee shop who is so muscular that his arms will not - cannot - won't - will never - fully sit at his sides

they do that thing under the cotton of his shirt where his flesh looks like slabs of ice in an old fashioned - where they remind one of horses flanks - where it would probably be terrifying to be held by him

there are stretch marks pulling from his armpit across his shoulder - they are bands in the rings of Saturn are the left overs from a lightening strike - they are the signs of skin growth - one could dowse here and discover a thing -

My     own     naked     body
is
reedy

knocks about in the wind - is a folded paper crown - sugar and meltability in a casement of thinness

the skin is paper the eyes are paper the moves are paper that has been licked at the edge and folded 1000 times

it does not order coffee so much as ask if it will gain today the ability to see into the future - be high as fuck over a vent in the earth and tell the secrets of the universe - the spine is the mast Odysseus was tied to - it is a gnarled tree - a dogwood that will not flower and therefore not leaf

it is a sight in its paleness -

I imagine that our shoulders would roll the same if laid back to back

there is the need to see the ugliness in that man and the line of coffee - a desire to find the tears - because my body allows itself to fold its arms tight to the side - allows its underthings to hide

a stretch across our backs would pop and curl and a lightness could envelop there

a sweat-skin would for real form -

Poem-A-Day #323 : Amber Alert

Amber Alert

Across the restaurant phones begin to siren
a child has been kidnapped
people glance          silence
               some read

A woman mumbles
she thought she had turned it off
she shows her friends how to turn it off

White sedan with New Mexico license plates
tinted windows

The child is 5          was wearing red
               shoes that light up

Normalcy returns
near immediate
a few moments and a single phone
repeats the sound

A muffle in someone's bag
embarrassed to be there
               no one looks up

And it must be ok
because within 8 hours they find them
they arrest the man
               the child goes home

It must be
because despite no one helping
everything went well