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  Here you are in the straw house, feeding ice to the dog, and you wanted

  an adventure, so I said Have an adventure.

  The straw about to burn, the straw on fire. Here you are on the TV,

  saying Watch me, just watch me.

  2

  Four dreams in a row, four dreams in a row, four dreams in a row,

  fall down right there. I wanted to fall down right there but I knew

  you wouldn't catch me because you're dead. I swallowed crushed ice

  pretending it was glass and you're dead. Ashes to ashes.

  You wanted to be cremated so we cremated you and you wanted an adventure

  so I ran and I knew you wouldn't catch me.

  You are a fever I am learning to live with, and everything is happening

  at the wrong end of a very long tunnel.

  3

  I woke up in the morning and I didn't want anything, didn't do anything,

  couldn't do it anyway,

  just lay there listening to the blood rush through me and it never made

  any sense, anything.

  And I can't eat, can't sleep, can't sit still or fix things and I wake up and I

  wake up and you're still dead, you're under the table, you're still feeding

  the damn dog, you're cutting the room in half.

  Whatever. Feed him whatever. Burn the straw house down.

  4

  I don't really blame you for being dead but you can't have your sweater back.

  So, I said, now that we have our dead, what are we going to do with them?

  There's a black dog and there's a white dog, depends on which you feed,

  depends on which damn dog you live with.

  5

  Here we are

  in the wrong tunnel, burn O burn, but it's cold, I have clothes

  all over my body, and it's raining, it wasn't supposed to. And there's snow

  on the TV, a landscape full of snow, falling from the fire-colored sky.

  But thanks, thanks for calling it the blue sky

  You can sleep now, you said. You can sleep now. You said that.

  I had a dream where you said that. Thanks for saying that.

  You weren't supposed to.

  Saying Your Names

  Chemical names, bird names, names of fire

  and flight and snow, baby names, paint names,

  delicate names like bones in the body,

  Rumplestiltskin names that are always changing,

  names that no one’s ever able to figure out.

  Names of spells and names of hexes, names

  cursed quietly under the breath, or called out

  loudly to fill the yard, calling you inside again,

  calling you home. Nicknames and pet names

  and baroque French monikers, written in

  shorthand, written in longhand, scrawled

  illegibly in brown ink on the backs of yellowing

  photographs, or embossed on envelopes lined

  with gold. Names called out across the water,

  names I called you behind your back,

  sour and delicious, secret and unrepeatable,

  the names of flowers that open only once,

  shouted from balconies, shouted from rooftops,

  or muffled by pillows, or whispered in sleep,

  or caught in the throat like a lump of meat.

  I try, I do. I try and try. A happy ending?

  Sure enough — Hello darling, welcome home.

  I’ll call you darling, hold you tight. We are

  not traitors but the lights go out. It’s dark.

  Sweetheart, is that you? There are no tears,

  no pictures of him squarely. A seaside framed

  in glass, and boats, those little boats with

  sails aflutter, shining lights upon the water,

  lights that splinter when they hit the pier.

  His voice on tape, his name on the envelope,

  the soft sound of a body falling off a bridge

  behind you, the body hardly even makes

  a sound. The waters of the dead, a clear road,

  every lover in the form of stars, the road

  blocked. All night I stretched my arms across

  him, rivers of blood, the dark woods, singing

  with all my skin and bone Please keep him safe.

  Let him lay his head on my chest and we will be

  like sailors, swimming in the sound of it, dashed

  to pieces. Makes a cathedral, him pressing against

  me, his lips at my neck, and yes, I do believe

  his mouth is heaven, his kisses falling over me

  like stars. Names of heat and names of light,

  names of collision in the dark, on the side of the

  bus, in the bark of the tree, in ballpoint pen

  on jeans and hands and the backs of matchbooks

  that then get lost. Names like pain cries, names

  like tombstones, names forgotten and reinvented,

  names forbidden or overused. Your name like

  a song I sing to myself, your name like a box

  where I keep my love, your name like a nest

  in the tree of love, your name like a boat in the

  sea of love — O now we’re in the sea of love!

  Your name like detergent in the washing machine.

  Your name like two X’s like punched-in eyes,

  like a drunk cartoon passed out in the gutter,

  your name with two X’s to mark the spots,

  to hold the place, to keep the treasure from

  becoming ever lost. I’m saying your name

  in the grocery store, I’m saying your name on

  the bridge at dawn. Your name like an animal

  covered with frost, your name like a music that’s

  been transposed, a suit of fur, a coat of mud,

  a kick in the pants, a lungful of glass, the sails

  in wind and the slap of waves on the hull

  of a boat that’s sinking to the sound of mermaids

  singing songs of love, and the tug of a simple

  profound sadness when it sounds so far away.

  Here is a map with a your name for a capital,

  here is an arrow to prove a point: we laugh

  and it pits the world against us, we laugh,

  and we’ve got nothing left to lose, and our hearts

  turn red, and the river rises like a barn on fire.

  I came to tell you, we’ll swim in the water, we’ll

  swim like something sparkling underneath

  the waves. Our bodies shivering, and the sound

  of our breathing, and the shore so far away.

  I’ll use my body like a ladder, climbing

  to the thing behind it, saying farewell to flesh,

  farewell to everything caught underfoot

  and flattened. Names of poisons, names of

  handguns, names of places we’ve been

  together, names of people we’d be together,

  Names of endurance, names of devotion,

  street names and place names and all the names

  of our dark heaven crackling in their pan.

  It’s a bed of straw, darling. It sure as shit is.

  If there was one thing I could save from the fire,

  he said, the broken arms of the sycamore,

  the eucalyptus still trying to climb out of the yard —

  your breath on my neck like a music that holds

  my hands down, kisses as they burn their way

  along my spine — or rain, our bodies wet,

  clothes clinging arm to elbow, clothes clinging

  nipple to groin — I’ll be right here. I’m waiting.

  Say hallelujah, say goodnight, say it over

  the canned music and your feet won’t stumble,

  his face getting larger, the rest blurring

  on every side. And angels, about t
welve angels,

  angels knocking on your head right now, hello

  hello, a flash in the sky, would you like to

  meet him there, in Heaven? Imagine a room,

  a sudden glow. Here is my hand, my heart,

  my throat, my wrist. Here are the illuminated

  cities at the center of me, and here is the center

  of me, which is a lake, which is a well that we

  can drink from, but I can’t go through with it.

  I just don’t want to die anymore.

  III

  Planet of Love

  Imagine this:

  You're driving.

  The sky's bright. You look great.

  In a word, in a phrase, it's a movie,

  you're the star.

  so smile for the camera, it's your big scene,

  you know your lines.

  I'm the director. I'm in a helicopter.

  I have a megaphone and you play along,

  because you want to die for love,

  you always have.

  Imagine this:

  You're pulling the car over. Somebody's waiting.

  You're going to die

  in your best friend's arms.

  And you play along because it's funny, because it's written down,

  you've memorized it,

  it's all you know.

  I say the phrases that keep it all going,

  and everybody plays along.

  Imagine:

  Someone's pulling a gun, and you're jumping into the middle of it.

  You didn't think you'd feel this way.

  There's a gun in your hand.

  It feels hot. It feels oily.

  I'm the director

  and i'm screaming at you,

  I'm waving my arms in the sky,

  and everyone's watching, everyone's

  curious, everyone's

  holding their breath.

  Wishbone

  You saved my life he says. I owe you everything.

  You don’t, I say, you don’t owe me squat, let’s just get going, let’s just

  get gone, but he’s relentless,

  keeps saying I owe you, says Your shoes are filling with your own

  damn blood, you must want something, just tell me, and it’s yours.

  But I can’t look at him, can hardly speak,

  I took the bullet for all the wrong reasons, I’d just as soon kill you myself,

  I say. You keep saying I owe you, I owe… but you say the same thing

  every time. Let’s not talk about it, let’s just not talk.

  Not because I don’t believe it, not because I want it any different, but I’m

  always saving and you’re always owing and I’m tired of asking to settle

  the debt. Don’t bother. You never mean it

  anyway, not really, and it only makes me that much more ashamed.

  There’s only one thing I want, don’t make me say it, just get me bandages,

  I’m bleeding, I’m not just making conversation.

  There’s smashed glass glittering everywhere like stars. It’s a Western,

  Henry. It’s a downright shoot-em-up. We’ve made a graveyard

  out of the bone white afternoon.

  It’s another wrong-man-dies scenario and we keep doing it, Henry,

  keep saying until we get it right… but we always win and we never quit.

  See, we’ve won again,

  here we are at the place where I get to beg for it where I get to say Please,

  for just one night, will you lay down next to me, we can leave our clothes on,

  we can stay all buttoned up?

  But we both know how it goes–– I say I want you inside me and you hold

  my head underwater, I say I want you inside me and you split me open

  with a knife.

  I’m battling monsters, I’m pulling you out of the burning buildings

  and you say I’ll give you anything but you never come through.

  Even when you’re standing up

  you look like you’re lying down, but will you let me kiss your neck, baby?

  Do I have to tie your arms down? Do I have to stick my tongue in your

  mouth like the hand of a thief,

  like a burglary, like it’s just another petty theft? It makes me tired,

  Henry. Do you see what I mean? Do you see what I’m getting at?

  I swear, I end up

  feeling empty, like you’ve taken something out of me, and I have to search

  my body for the scars, thinking Did he find that one last tender place to

  sink his teeth in?

  I know you want me to say it, Henry, it’s in the script, you want me to say

  Lie down on the bed, you’re all I ever wanted and worth dying for too...

  but I think I’d rather keep the bullet.

  It’s mine, see, I’m not giving it up. This way you still owe me, and that’s

  as good as anything. You can’t get out of this one, Henry, you can’t get it

  out of me, and with this bullet lodged in my chest,

  covered with your name, I will turn myself into a gun, because I’m hungry

  and hollow and just want something to call my own. I’ll be your

  slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue

  and final resting, walking around with this bullet inside me like the bullet

  was already there, like it’s been waiting inside me the whole time.

  Do you want it? Do you want anything I have?

  Will you throw me to the ground like you mean it, reach inside and wrestle

  it out with your bare hands? If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me

  in a way I understand.

  Do you know how it ends? Do you feel lucky? Do you want to go home

  now? There’s a bottle of whiskey in the trunk of the Chevy and a

  dead man at our feet

  staring up at us like we’re something interesting. This is where the evening

  splits in half, Henry, love or death. Grab an end, pull hard,

  and make a wish.

  Driving, Not Washing

  It starts with bloodshed, always bloodshed, always the same

  running from something larger than yourself story,

  shoving money into the jaws of a suitcase, cutting your hair

  with a steak knife at a rest stop,

  and you're off, you're on the run, a fugitive driving away from

  something shameful and half-remembered.

  They're hurling their bodies down the freeway

  to the smell of gasoline,

  which is the sound of a voice saying I told you so.

  Yes, you did dear.

  Every story has its chapter in the desert, the long slide from kingdom

  to kingdom through the wilderness,

  where you learn things, where you're left to your own devices.

  Henry's driving,

  and Theodore's bleeding shotgun into the upholstery.

  It's a road movie,

  a double-feature, two boys striking out across America, while desire,

  like a monster, crawls up out of the lake

  with all of us watching, with all of us wondering if these two boys will

  find a way to figure it out.

  Here is the black box, the shut eye,

  the bullet pearling in his living skin. This boy, half-destroyed,

  screaming Drive into that tree, drive off the embankment.

  Henry, make something happen.

  But angels are pouring out of the farmland, angels are swarming

  over the grassland,

  Angels rising from their little dens, arms swinging, wings aflutter,

  dropping their white-hot bombs of love.

  We are not dirty, he keeps saying. We are not dirty...

  They want you to love the whole damn world but you won't,

  you want it all narrowed down to
one fleshy man in the bath,

  who knows what to do with his body, with his hands.

  It should follow,

  you know this, like the panels of a comic strip,

  we should be belted in, but you still can't get beyond your skin,

  and they're trying to drive you into the ground, to see if anything

  walks away.

  Road Music

  1

  The eye stretches to the horizon and then must continue up.

  Anything past the horizon

  is invisible, it can only be imagined. You want to see the future but

  you only see the sky. Fluffy clouds.

  Look—white fluffy clouds.

  Looking back is easy for a while and then looking back gets

  murky. There is the road, and there is the story of where the road goes,

  and then more road,

  the roar of the freeway, the roar of the city sheening across the city.

  There should be a place.

  At the rest stop, in the restaurant, the overpass, the water's edge . . .

  2

  He was not dead yet, not exactly—

  parts of him were dead already, certainly other parts were still only waiting

  for something to happen, something grand, but it isn't

  always about me,

  he keeps saying, though he's talking about the only heart he knows—

  He could build a city. Has a certain capacity. There's a niche in his chest

  where a heart would fit perfectly

  and he thinks if he could just maneuver one into place—

  well then, game over.

  3

  You wonder what he's thinking when he shivers like that.

  What can you tell me, what could you possibly

  tell me? Sure, it's good to feel things, and if it hurts, we're doing it

  to ourselves, or so the saying goes, but there should be

  a different music here. There should be just one safe place

  in the world, I mean

  this world. People get hurt here. People fall down and stay down and I don't like

  the way the song goes.

  You, the moon. You, the road. You, the little flowers

  by the side of the road. You keep singing along to that song I hate. Stop singing.

  The Dislocated Room

  It was night for many miles and then the real stars in the purple sky,

  like little boats rowed out too far,

  begin to disappear.

  And there, in the distance, not the promised land,

  but a Holiday Inn,