dust

dust eats my tongue

there go my lungs too

swallowed right up whole

eyes clogged blind

filmy earth cataracts 

like i’m in a snow globe but

no snow here just

shake hard down it falls

solid rough 

dissipating dust

legs slogged heavy

nowhere to go but down

unwillingly accompanying

dust drowned hopes

falling head over heels

into the sewer together

lying twisted lying starved

gasping prayers that

take us nowhere— hot air

balloon deliverance to

heaven ended in the 90’s 

the desert was not meant for 

dreamers

no. but for those

who lie sleepy content

watching everything 

they thought they knew

fall sickly sickly

dust-covered and

wheezing sticky red

cough-syrup

and the lord in the desert

heard their prayer

tall

he’s too tall sometimes

six six

"head in the clouds"

she begs him

come down 'cuz

when she looks up

"space cadet"

she don’t 

know what’s there

sometimes all she 

see is shoulders

i mean maybe

 it feel nice

clutching the torso 

holding the hand

but damn it’s just a body

where’d the head go

rocketed all the way

into the clouds

"what's the weather like up there?"

he’ll be happier

just you see

because there

he don’t have to

say nothing or be

anything 

he ain’t.

she wants to shoot 

firecrackers up see

if we can get his

attention i tell her

not great not great

what if he catches 

fire what then

his whole head might

implode given

his ponderous deep

oil wells of

thought all bubbling

up inside. 

she tell me she not

sure she can keep

up, so i say drill

a hole in

real deep where

the flesh weak

you know like

behind the knee cap

drain it like sapping a 

syrup tree in Canada

except we not in 

Canada. we in 

Arizona and 

he still way up

in the clouds.