2 Poems

The night with its teeth

and the soft skin of memory

My heart is a rusty pump recycling the same shit through my veins again and again and again.

My heart is a house with no doors and no windows, and inside is a man with a telescope.

My heart is a gust of wind that spins leaves and garbage together in one whirlwind without a

care for the difference.

My heart is a teacher speaking backwards to a room full of students facing the wrong way.

My heart is beautiful and gives good lap dances, and she’ll be happy to dance for you, but it will

cost you a lot and you can’t touch her.

My heart is a movie where all the roles are played by the same actor.

My heart is a basket of fruit where the bananas are still green but the oranges are rotted to

mush.

My heart is a guitar played like a violin.

My heart is one of those inflatable tube men at used car lots who dance when they are puffed

up with air but otherwise melt into a puddle of plastic.

My heart is a drug dealer loitering outside of a middle school.

My heart is a hermit crab making a home in a sandcastle.

My heart is a pack of wolves with no teeth, a herd of deer with no legs.

My heart is one of those fault lines that constantly slips and causes a hundred earthquakes a

day, but they are all so small that nobody notices, and everyone goes along with their lives.

My heart is a glass pitcher that I keep dropping onto the floor of a room crowded with dancers.

My heart is a storm cloud with crackling lightning and pounding thunder, but never any rain.

My heart is a top that never stops spinning.

My heart is a car that runs but stays parked in the driveway, and when you hop into the driver’s

seat, the only thing you can do is listen to the radio.

My heart is a gangly man in a trench coat who exposes himself to joggers at the park.

My heart is an octopus stuffed into a mason jar.

My heart is a vending machine that eats quarters and then keeps the candy for itself.

My heart is a cloud that sometimes looks like a horse and sometimes looks like a heart and

sometimes looks like a phallus and sometimes looks like nothing at all.

My heart is a prism that shoves the whole spectrum into one dull ray of light.

My heart is an old man playing chess against himself, and who always loses.

My heart is a schoolyard bully who shoves a nerd into a trashcan and then writes poetry in the

dark.

My heart is the cross and the man nailed to it and the crown of thorns on his head and the

soldier jabbing the spear into his side and the jeering crowd and the God who just watches.

My heart is a muscle that pumps blood through my body and nothing more.