Oh, so petite | Settle down | Sit still |Be quiet |Wait your turn |Don’t get dirty |Mind your manners | Little bites for little girls | Ask permission | Please and Thank you | Don’t be rude | Listen closely | Cross your legs | Act like a lady |Don’t interrupt |Lose some weight | Stand up straight | Your hair’s too short |Don’t be such a bitch |Smile | Smile | Smile |Shake your ass | Too much makeup | Wear some makeup | Open your legs | Open your mouth | Shut your mouth | You’re such a slut | Time to get married |Don’t be a tease |Don’t wait to have children | Don’t be a prude | Nurse the baby | Don’t breastfeed in public | Go back to work | Stay home with the kids | Don’t hover | Go gray | Ugh color that hair | You’re too old |You waited too long | You’re too weak | You’re too slow | It’s too late |What’s wrong with you | You were such a cute baby

leading out front
scorching pavers dulled i was chosen
this morning out of them all
to use a map
it doesn’t come to us this time we trace out
where they once played
music blew out the evening’s wick scintillating
music under the quietly laden floorboards
 

Robins follow discreetly, watching me weed each garden row
Turning up earthworms, fat and juicy
Easy breakfast buffet, no pulling, no neck stretching,
just a quick slurp and the wriggling worm is gone

One robin, finishes its meal, fixes me with an eye,
spreads its wings, hops twice and bows its head
You’re welcome, I say

Of all Superman’s amazing powers—
Batman’s brain, the Flash’s footspeed,
the strength of Thor & the Thing put
together, & best of all that really cute
lock of dark hair flopping just so
on his forehead—the one I envied most
in those decidedly earthbound years
of my early adolescence was his capacity
for flight, & more than that how he flew,
no clanky suit like Iron Man or prodigious
leaps like the Hulk or even wings flapping
like the X-Men’s Angel. Superman simply
looked up at the sky and rose into it,
making gravity inapplicable to himself,
his only accommodation to the laws
of physics flying in a prone and therefore
aerodynamic stance, slicing through the air
with his outstretched hands like the blades
of a knife, seeing every detail below
with the sharp eyes of a peregrine falcon,
scanning not for prey but for anyone needing
saving. Many nights I dreamed of standing
on the edge of some precipice, the earth
crumbling at my feet & about to swallow me
up, & here he would come swooping down,
snatching me from the jaws of certain death
& in an instant the two of us would be off
for a spin around the planet, my hand
resting lightly on his forearm, the wind
in our faces & the whole world laid out
just for us, Lois Lane nowhere in sight.

I didn’t awake with you lingering on my mind from a dream
the scent of honey in the spring and the mist after a lite sprinkling 

I lay amidst purple tones of sweet pea color schemes,
contrasting in the midst of ferns of dark green
I like being planted in cool soil too it would seem; whilst anticipating the warmth from a suns beam

dancing only after drinking caffeine;
I have one thought and they waltz in a teem

Each morning the clock radio jolts her awake with the vapid musings of a daily show.

Wrenched from the dreamworld she begrudgingly stirs.

The light resplendent creeps past the sun-worn curtains, dances up the bed skirt and beckons her to join the waking world.

Each morning she puts on her uniform of khakis and a red polo, and readies herself to join the ranks of “yes m’am” and “how can I help you today?”

She slides a granola bar and a worn copy of the seven habits of highly effective people into her cracked red leather shoulder bag.

Each morning she waits for the bus that stops across from the Marathon station. When she has time she’ll run in and get a coffee. The intersection swirls with exhaust fumes as cars and trucks stream through endless cycles of red and green.

Still not fully awake she gazes out of the window of the moving vehicle. Children are on their way to school and men in orange vests wave people past concrete barricades. 

Each morning she crosses the threshold of the big box store, burning coffee mingles with knock-off perfume. Sweatshop sundries hang off of headless mannequins.

For the next nine hours she’ll ferry cast offs from the dressing room back to their homes on the floor, like Sysyphus on the mountain, each morning, she will return.

I wear a sprig of heather

Rehab is hopeless
if insurance is lacking
they’re back on the street

Now people know why
there are so many addicts
no exit in sight

Don’t tell her the Lariat of Truth is a jump rope

in a fanny pack, neon pink from the ’80s. 

Let her climb the outside of the stairs, deflecting

unseen bullets with slap bracelets, a wide-eyed

wonder-woman scaling her grandmother’s porch

to fight the bad guys. Let her land

in that invisible jet when she jumps from the edge,

the scent of wild onion in her hair. 

one day me and Stinky Jay
was riding our bikes in the
pond last night and was on
our way to the concert they
had last week at the Phoenix
theater which burned down
before they built it back in
1935 in the year 2000 and we
wanted to hear the opening
band that played at the end of
the show before the headliners
started so me and Jinky Stay
wrote letters home from
summer camp and asked
our mums to send a box
of cookies to the airport
and gave up on finishing
our math homework since
we didn’t have bikes and
the international space station
was passing overhead brighter
than the planet Venus II on
Earth I Day and Sinky left his
car keys at home last time we was
at my house after we both retired
from the railroad following thirty years
of service this morning and our families
put us in nursing bras and then we
danced the Pokey Hokey and I finished
my dissertation on phuantum qysics
and mailed it in along with three box
tops for a Cap’n Crunch pirate decoder
ring we was gonna exchange for the
prisoners of war still being held in the
desert hell of the Antarctic humpback
whale that swims around among the
mini marshmallows in the hot chocolate
Stanky Jiy wears on the brim of his pants.