if you find god, keep him in your pocket
My old man saves quarters
with Wyoming's bucking bronco
on the back.
Only Wyoming
never New Jersey or Vermont.
Like they will be worth twenty-six cents someday.
People never find God
unless things are going
horribly wrong.
Prison cancer addiction
being lost in the Amazon rainforest
with cutter ants gnawing
on your broken leg
while an airplane writes
Will you marry me?
With its exhaust.
The pilot never sees you.
God sees everything and laughs.
Michael Vick found God
so did Tonya Harding.
Yesterday I found a quarter
with God's face
on the back
a stern profile chiseled in silver
a handsome white man
with his hair parted to the left
a cocky grin
and it said
"In me I trust"
nurtured like a cactus in a single man’s apartment
I never learned how to make a bed properly
do the dishes
mow the yard in diagonal lines
vacuum
comb my hair
make cereal
feed the dog
My dad just said
do it
it better be done before I get home
grabbed his black lunch box
silver thermos
and slammed the door
His rail yard bibs would walk out
into yellow mornings
come home in blue evenings
and I was dirtier
than I was before
I didn't figure out that the shower curtain goes
on the inside of the tub
until I lived on my own
The floor was always wetter than me
and I was a newborn calf
doing splits
every time I tried to stand on my own
Now I just take baths
I never learned what dinnertime talk meant
parent teacher conferences
sack lunches with half cut sandwiches
like that red-haired kid Roy Edge flaunted
just before I took it from him
When I was a child I dreamed
of being a single father
in a house painted two shades of brown
because I started something I couldn't finish
I never planned that I'd be the age
I am now
Women were like
family trips to Disneyland
Other people's families
I never learned to decode ancient Mayan hieroglyphics
or read the nutritional values on bread
I never learned that when a woman says
I'm fine nothing’s wrong
she really means
we need to talk
and when she says
we need to talk
well
it's usually over by then.
i watched the stoplight change in your eyes
We drove to a sex shop.
I said I'd by you that purple waterproof dildo
that curves to the left.
Just like me.
But sex couldn't wait.
You took my swollen ego into your mouth.
As I drove, the shadows of branches
brushed your back through
stained glass cathedrals.
Me I played with your hair,
tried not to crash,
used turn signals
and drove the speed limit.
Streetlights in rain ran
the length of the blacktop.
Obsidian in the throes
of city heat, cars
pulling up next to us,
honking with Barney Fife smiles
and a hemp necklace I wish
was a noose.
instead, raising thumbs up
like dumb simians do.
We didn't care
and suddenly the price of gas
didn't seem that bad.
Four dollars is nothing
compared to the warmth
of your mouth.
The place where I came from,
your smile will make
you a star kid.
So we drove
into tomorrow, our future
windshield wipers
pushed yesterday
off into the street
and I watched it
fall on its face in the rear view.
I finished off and pulled
your head up for a kiss.
The reflection of the stoplight
turned green
in your eyes.
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