Poems I wrote in 1997 or so

1. i have beheaded the teddy bear that was in your bed and which you were given as a baby. i’m sorry. it was so obese so stuffed and so happy. 2. i have removed the breast implants that were in your sister and which landed her an appearance on baywatch. forgive me. they were so smooth so rubbery and so soft.

silence

the low steady hum of streetlights on suburban snow dunes

lacks the city's punctuation -

the passing cars

and sirens

dump trucks

and street cleaners -

the passing cars slide by the buzzing houses humming with boiler rooms and refrigerators

the low steady hum of streetlights over the dunes.

over the dunes past the houses

the crackling car radio fades -

the car slides by humming like a suburban streetlight

over the snowdrift sands of the desert hills

riding the gentle curves

the belly drop dips

of the snowdrift sands -

the passing car glides by the solemn joshua trees

like a siren.

(I cower under the snowy overhang

as the windswept newspaper man glides by -

whirring past the boiling buzzing streetlights

abiding the dunes

the skids and dips -

I shrink and dip into the dawn darkness with no escape from

the slow steady hum of streetlights on suburban snow dunes.)