Jobs

I picture you kneading bread
for cat head biscuits, each
roughly the size of a cat’s head,
with sweat in your eyes.
I write an article
about steel pedestrian fences
installed on a nearby bridge
to prevent suicide.
I write 65 people committed
suicide jumping off the bridge
last year and remember
I will be fired.
The politically correct phrase
is died by suicide.
I write 65 people died by
suicide jumping off the bridge
last year and remember
our cat needs feeding.
I picture you stumbling through
the door with biscuits
under your arms.
I write an article
about politicians who believe
people live or die
according to God’s will.
Their God couldn’t prevent 65
people dying by suicide,
jumping off the bridge last year.
Six hours later
you do not stumble through
the door with biscuits, you just
stumble through the door,
which is enough.
Then, we fuck like teenagers
as our cat cries,
the sun goes down
and I don’t want to die anymore.

Porcupine

must be nice,
skin that can kill.
remember dad saying
toughen up,
my strawberry knee?
slide porcupine
spines down a poison
dart frog.
craft projectiles
for your least favorite
politician.
easy slipping under
inner demons,
our world dripping
with fathers.
some nights
i want people
to bleed
when they touch me.

Cat

there’s so much love on me
after petting your cat
i can barely walk

you walk me to bed
but that makes it worse
because the love spreads
so we start sinking

when your cat
feels the earth collapse
she screams like a baby

we plummet through dirt
through crust and magma
landing on a metal core

in the morning
we climb out of the tunnel
dress for work
and stare down the hole

it’s a matter
of who jumps first
and who follows

it’s how quick you take
my hand
or if we die falling

our landlord doesn’t allow
pets in the apartment
but actually fuck him

we hide her in
your perfect brown eyes
our chest cavities
next to the left lung