The stuff that comes out a bird's mouth.
headlights illuminate
dandelion heads
lighting them up
small luminous ghosts
each an incandescent
fading wish
you say
–i can’t tell the difference
between human and animal sounds
each passing car
a wall switch
wish on
wish off
coyotes and owls
try to tell us
which is preferable
beneath the dry soil
water-smoothed rocks
the ground exhales
a fine cloud of dust
as you excavate
i found once
the desiccated remains
of a hungry ghost
translucent and as white
as the moon
in the morning sky
it had eaten its fill
and moved on to bigger
hopefully better things
though
what does a ghost eat
besides the memories
and the breaths of the living
let us go then
you and i while
this little light
fails in caution tape stipes
of yellow against green
yellowing grass
everything rolls up
in the egg roll
layer by layer
by layer
like a handroll
with krab, avocado
and mermaid meat
easy on the shoyu
the dog pants
the dogs pant
the dog’s pants
the table etherized patient
has 100,000 miles
of arteries and veins
stretched tightly
when plucked
the vibration is invisible to
the human eye
the sound so high
it cannot be heard
except by resonance
in the blood
run a needle through
grains of sand like beads
sand from my eyes
no sunny beach
the needle exits every
where there is an eyelash
this is sleep
when you die
depending on the mortuary
or the mortician i suppose
they will plug your throat
and sew your mouth closed
to keep the last notes of your
last song
from scaring the folks staring
at your mummified remains
your eyes will be velcroed shut
not exactly velcro
instead they’ll use an eye cap
a contact lens covered in spikes
to keep your eyelids in place
run me through a meat grinder
and feed me to the shelter dogs
someone at least
will not go hungry for one single meal
there is no part one
i dreamt i was the moon, but the dream seemed real upon waking, so much so that i checked the mirror for craters and dark sides. i found nothing of interest–no man living there, no celestial maiden, no mochi pounding rabbits. the memory of that cold embrace of the dark sky, being held by nothing, floating and shining with an impossible weightlessness of being both far away and as near as a reflection in glass haunted me throughout the day and well into a moonless night.
i push into you
pass through you like
that episode of star trek
–which one?–
where a transporter accident
causes the crew to phase into
a parallel dimension
but still they manage to
keep their feet on the
floor of the ship
–which one?–
how do ghosts do it?
pass through walls
yet move on a slightly curved path
that ties them to the earth
like regret or obsession
is just another word for gravity
like destiny is another word for density
the stuffed birds in the taxidermist’s window
forever open their beaks
forever expand their throats in song
for never fly again
like layers
like sheets of thin
moon-on-glass translucent
papers piled
each corner at odds
with all other corners
an impossible origami
–look, you say
–a heart
–look, I say
–a bird dead in green grass
the dog knows it is paper
and tears it to pieces
but refuses to digest it
rabbits dot the grass
like dandelions
eating dandelions
scattering like dandelion fluff
after a good dream squashing kick
or a robust wish granting puff of air
when the dogs approach
though
one of the rabbits
reminds me of bigwig
or maybe woundwort
the way he stares at us
and doesn’t move
a wish that will
not be denied
nor whispered to the breeze
a dead man
appears to me in a dream
shuffling from side to side
grinning sheepishly
he apologizes
for dying
and leaving things
undone
a blue bag of dog shit tied
to the leash
swings in and out
of a cone of light
like a censer
during mass
beads of sap
from the latest tree trimming
glisten like globes of glass
on the sidewalk
a broken mirror
shaped like a child’s drawing
of a house
turned such that i
cannot see my reflection
only the silver sheen
of light
two owls in the night
one invisible, screeching
a second, caught in the beam
of my flashlight
frozen like a ghost projected
against the night sky
silent
take my heart
find it weightless
i have emptied it
day by day
scraping away
the inside lining
with bloody fingernails
pounding flat the walls
with bruised fists
burnishing the
paper-thin membrane
with my palms
until my bones
have shown through
the skin
weigh my heart on your scale
it is empty and without weight
your feather will drag
the balance down
to strike the floor
resounding like a gong
nothing in my heart
your hand may pass through it
as if through mist or
a rainbow’s shadow
o dog-headed god
watch as my heart rises
it will ascend
watch it ascend
let it ascend
