Every day you pretend you’re not going to die


you make plans
for the week, 
next year, 
for retirement 
you’re going to take that trip 
to Maui
Italy
NYC
you’re going to drive
with the top down
in January
going to tell that girl 
I love you
quit this nowhere job
confess your sins 
stop being who you are, 
rock and roll 
over a new leaf . 
you plan and imagine, 
that your bones won’t turn to ash 
your muscles atrophy, 
never believing you won’t hear 
the rush of rivers 
or the sigh of a lover
you wish to swim the ocean 
shore to shore, hear 
the tides shift into voices;
to wake dreamless 
and wet, your grief measured 
in the crest of waves.



Conversation with Death 


All these years you’ve never recognized me
until now. Remember the car crash, not the first 
one but the one that left you unconscious, bleeding 
from a head wound; the rumors of being locked up.
We’re alike, you know. There are many versions of me; 
you didn’t see me watching when you played chicken 
with cars, intent, crouched and bouncing from leg to leg 
like a soccer goalie during a penalty shot. 
You thought I was too busy with the business of war,
pestilence, and plague when you drove blackout drunk 
across three state lines, benzedrine-fueled and lustful
for the redhead who took you apart. 
We grew up together; the mother-father-drunken brawls; 
the mental cave-ins that sucked the air out of the room; 
looking down the barrel of a loaded gun, the bitter tang
of metal on your tongue you can never forget.
I travel light. No need to schlep around guilt, grief, fear, 
false love or cling to evaporating time. I don’t have to read 
your mail to know you’ll try to lose me, fade to invisibility 
in a crowd, but you’re not going anywhere without me. 



Only the redacted version of this poem will be published


I miss your breasts, your nipples,
dream of your skin against mine,
 
your smooth pussy, the way you are
sopping wet just before I enter you.
 
I miss your touch, your hand stroking 
my hair as we fuck, fingers wrapped
 
around my cock guiding me into you. 
Every time is the first time, never able
 
to get close enough; breath catching
together, hands entwined with every

thrust, rocking and rolling into a new
universe that expands with each exhale.