Half Mast

It is a Viking name

It is a cold and weathered

Drift wood

Name

It is a name turned blue and stone and stiff

It is a chiseled

Still born

Box of teeth

She keeps him

As she keeps

My Self

Small and swaddled

Wet and wondered

Like a puppy

Or a bowl of fruit

She’s wrong

She’s mean and gone

She’s dead even to the dead

My Viking boy is grown

And cracked and puffed his cheeks

He’s smart

And big

And safe

Like a college

Or a light house

He’s mine

My brother

My older

Only Mine

All

Mine Like a trading card or a spoon of sugar MINE!

It is a Viking name

Eric Eric Eric

(Can you open up for me real quick? There we go, Good girl.)

~Skin and Toast

Drafted Rough.

When I Was 5 and Had My Looks

Oh a fox was I

A shell between a breast

I hung on frames

And shucked on legs

Yes

There was a flannel gown

Pressed between my gums

It draped on chains behind my door

It Pinked and pricked a

Sweet sweet basement of a girl

He was

A shelf on top my lungs

We

Never touched the ground

It’s fine

The sleeves claimed islands all their own

I often wonder

Will my waist come down

Again

To

Raise my ruffle

Like a barn in the night

And take my twenty pounds to bank

Oh a fox was I

I wonder

When can I peel back that time

Too her holy skinless

Boyhood raft

Oh to be a waffle cutting

Inner

Gated thigh

To be an opera on his loafer

To choke in threads

And feel once more

~Skin and Toast

Sound it out

I've learned annuity and lawn chairs and

The city of God against the pagans

I have a seat up front

Baseball season is fast approaching

I don't hate him on Thursdays

He took me to the games

That much I can say

I'll give you that

And she took me to the theatre

I'll give her that

Just

Read Jesus' son

Recommend it to the highest

I want to write something half Dillard half Johnson

I'd be happy not reading it out loud

My voice has been shaking lately

Swollen knees

Soft piano

Pink canals

There seems to be fluids on the floor, two inches deep

I sweep my jacket over my naked shoulder

And part my lips

And someone snaps a black and white January

And someone holds me on their private refreshing car

Sipping fizzy water in my pajamas I feel like my mountain has arrived

I've been in so many apartments it's embarrassing

And wonderful

Just awake enough to know I'm exhausted

Heavy friend with kings of kings of kings of kings

Skin and Toast

PS It's not a Chicago thing. On the south side the only way to save your parking space is to get your kids to lay down in it, face down. Your red cones and card board boxes get shot on the south side. Even Linda had a gun. And she drove an 84' silver ford tempo. Two door. Please.

Fuck the Steelers

I don't know anything about the Steelers.

I don't know anything about football.

I'm sure if I was ever at one time good at it, or if I had ever tried it, then I would have taken interest, and pursued.

Oh, lord wont you buy me, a two bedroom condo.

Wrote hard all my lifetime, nothing to show.

I have to say, waiting is the worst.

To be perfectly honest, all you ten or so followers, I have applied to Columbia College (MFA Poetry).

It seemed like the next step for me.

I wanted it.

I applied.

I filled it all out.

My electronic bulletin board tells me that all has been received.

And we have to remind ourselves that that is a win.

We have to remind ourselves that there was a rhyme with a time when getting out of bed meant we would shortly most definitely be hanging from the shower in no time at all, as in can't go on. As in might as well just lye still.

As in can't talk.

I remember saying that, I remember sitting down in acting class, and saying; guys, I'm here, but I can't talk. Nothing is going to come out. I just want you to know, that I'm here, but I cannot talk. I cannot speak.

I said that many times.

It sounds so utterly dramatic, but it was as articulate as I could muster.

Nothing.

There was a lot of nothing in that place.

It was all a waste.

I hate my father.

My father is not my father.

He came to the show in August with his latest whore.

I stood by the garbage can for a good forty five.

I couldn't talk.

I know a lot about garbage cans.

I used to eat out of his garbage can nightly.

Nightly.

I couldn't eat or talk at that Highland Park table.

I would wait till late at night when everyone else was asleep, and I would steel away to the sliding can, and I would eat Tuesdays crust, and suck Sundays lemons,

With abandon.

Dr. Un Rooley came to the show in December.

What a difference a man makes.

What a lifetime a friend makes.

What a family a boy makes.

What a lucky a girl is.

After all of that.

After Linda's and Tom's.

And bugs on sidewalks on screaming on courtrooms.

Yes, my last name is Anne.

And I will not take your bath.

I will not take it to my bed.

I will not put it with my dead.

Anne I am.

My months are measured in men, always a surprise that I am straight,

Skin and Toast

PS: Don't be confused. Friend Boy is my only. Un Rooley is like a Dempsey. It's not sexual. Those girls with issues who wanted to bone their teachers. I never did that. I like friend boy cause he's skinny. And cause he's the only. Not that I thought you would thought that I was implying any anything. I think the Steelers just won. I mean the Packers, the meat packers. Oh, pack that shit.