This is different from equipment used throughout the country.
"We chose the center," he said,
"for you." I love this name and others.

Starter Home

She was a ventriloquist
I said I'd been a centralist
For, oh, about as long as I've known you

Her ring marks on the steering wheel
And everything was done in teal
At our last few funerals

Her father left a couple bucks
The kitchen counter in a box
With a lock of her hair

Videotapes of jumping jacks
The old space mountain, mickey mouse
But everything was there

Three-fifths of attraction is thinking you're alone
Most of what I like about her is how she looks when she's sleeping
Half the fun of psychics is knowing they are wrong
Do you think he got abducted? I haven't seen him 'round for weeks and weeks

And bought a new dishwasher cause the one we had was leaks and leaks

Forward mail to new address
My made monster made a mess
One guy I knew died

Rows and rows of clothing racks
Orange stains of cheesy snacks
Looks like a good place to hide

Escape this town
I saw it in a movie I was moved
When there's nothing around
Take an unfamiliar avenue

I know, I know
The land is far too dry this time of year
To plant a row
Of sun-soaked flowers by their jungle gym

Looking in the mirror is a type of meditation
Hearing distant church bells is how I know when to eat
Letting myself worry when there's not a real good reason
Having a better sense of time and knowing when there's days and days

And trying to talk different because no one hears a word I say

I wanna hold your hand
I wanna listen to your old band
I wanna be your man
Again and again and again and again and again

Hardy Boys

There’s dust in my drink and there’s bugs in my hair
And there’s a ring in my ear, I guess there’s love in the air
There’s food in my teeth, there’s my mom on the phone
There’s a boy in the trees and there’s something real nice about being alone

I still find when I’m close to the coast
I get sleepy-eyed, I start moving too slow
I stayed here last night so that’s where we’ll begin
Whatever you think, this is not what you think

Let’s get one arm tan, let’s fucking do it
Let’s buy those tree-shaped things that makes cars smell like peppermint
Buy a tank full of gas, buy a book about zen
We’ll buy a bag full of weed if you can spot me a ten

And then there’s sun in my skin, there’s blood in my eye
There’s a chip in my tooth and there’s a pain in my side
There’s a speaker blown out, but there’s my favorite song on
And it wouldn’t sound bad if we all sing along

The way you braid your hair, I’ve seen it just once before
In an great museum, in a painting on the second floor
I know from my old broken bones just when it’s about to pour
And when it rains you dance to a record that skips in time with your hips

Let’s drink tea from a cup that was made for our mouths
Put on that sweat-stained shirt you don’t usually wear out
Collect dew on our necks from an overgrown lawn
Look through an old atlas, all the good roads are gone

So let’s read a yellow book about a big mystery
Speak in Hardy Boys slang about what it could be
I’m reminded of fights, I’m reminded of blood
I’m looking for a plane I look directly in the sun

The way that your voice breaks, I hear it when I am sleeping
In the muggy days, and I’m sweating so I’m not breathing
I’ve got the grass-stained knees when I’m waking up in the evening
And every night you sing with a guitar missing a few needless strings

I still spit when I’m trying to speak
I get all confused, I get sad for a week
I open my drapes and I open my mouth
I inhale a generation of dust from the South

Introduction

We sleep in the basement on Delancey St
After hanging up our clothes
You whisper, “do fake CPR on me”
But I cannot find your pulse

We pull out the sofa and warm up some Chinese
While our sneakers are in the dryer
We twist and turn all night and tie knots in the sheets
Losing circulation in our thighs

Watch moths cluster around the light bulbs
Til the power goes off at 3am
Pass time counting up your freckles
I lose track and start again

In the morning we don’t know what time it is
Collect last week’s newspaper from the porch
Go up to the room where I used to live
Peel some old punk stickers off the headboard

And then you are behind me with a towel around your waist
And someone else’s breath mints in your mouth
You say you’ve found a birthmark in an unfamiliar place
I say “get dressed, I’ll show you around the house”

O, this is the ceiling where my sister scrawled her poetry
O, this is the living room where Christmas always used to be
O, this is the mattress where I lost my virginity
O, this is the house where I was raised

I can see my mother’s lipstick on your coffee cup
And I know where my father keeps his cigarettes
The windows above the sink are frozen shut
You write our names backwards in the translucence

Big t-shirts worn backwards with the tag scratching your neck
Says something about a bad sports team in blue and black
Cold bare feet on tiled floors kicking roach motels along
Whatever you’re humming is my favorite song

Sacrifice Of The Bass Line From That One Pixies Song

Ba[1] da[2] da[3] dun[4] dun[5] da[6] da[7] dun[8] dun[9] du[10] du[11] da[12] du[13] da[14] da.[15]

[1] All the way to Boston by back roads with the same CD stuck in the rental car, our voices start to give out after a time.
[2] My hand grows sweaty, and after lunch there is probably a little honey mustard somewhere in it, so for this I am sorry.
[3] You talk to the man behind the counter in Spanish, which was a surprise to me, but I recognize the lisp on “mayonesa,” you couldn’t stand it.
[4] We are very lost as soon as we left the turnpike but you smile with a poppy seed in your teeth and refuse to admit it, turning up the volume.
[5] I play along, naming the towns we were passing as if they were familiar, pointing at a courthouse or a fire hydrant and saying, “Oh, remember?”
[6] You had insisted on driving, I think, just to wear those sunglasses and float your arm out the window like a pilot.
[7] We have forgotten a couple things at home and are better off without them, don’t you think?
[8] A lost coil of hair makes its way out the window, and you don’t notice for nine miles.
[9] Your left arm is just a little redder than the right already.
[10] When it gets dark we pull over to hear the crickets just beyond the guardrail.
[11] Every time the chorus kicks in I can count on you to tap it out on the steering wheel.
[12] They must have just paved this road, I feel that if we fell asleep it would forgive.
[13] Our cigarette butts dance out holy orgies in the rearview mirror.
[14] I have never seen brighter brights.
[15] My ears pop when you are changing lanes.

Ten Questions For My Congressman

Why does the lake near Route 519 get so cold even in the middle of summer, so that my skin raises in protest, knowing fully well I will be there when it comes back down?

What can you do about the sun, which goes down behind the strip mall, mixing its luster with fast food signs, and the gas station attendants sneezing and smoking, looking up at it like discovering?

How can I make the sound that a car makes, in going over the bridge to my grandmother’s house, either to move a dresser or to celebrate another holiday?

Would you say the name of your friend, not knowing she was behind you, your lip getting caught in the wind, filling you with northern dust?

Am I still not tall enough to touch the top of the doorway at the supermarket as I get film developed, pictures I took without looking?

Can I really see church steeple from the next town over, or is that a water tower, and if so where does that water go?

Could you live in a place where your breath trails out behind you like the Metro-North longing to tip right into the Hudson?

When I stood outside of the municipal building, catching my breath, did I feel the sweat evaporate off of my body?

Who did I touch, making my way to the back of the restaurant to meet someone?

Should the rain sting my hand this way when I’ve rolled the window down to signal a turn?

H1N1

I figured this was a good enough place to be sick
or to start a family, made them out of bronze Mohave dust,
waiting room Jeep commercials I was waiting for a crime to be solved.

My cousin played a victim on one of these
with made-up stab wounds from after she had been raped.
Boys zipped her body up you could tell there wasn’t coffee in those cups,

just somewhere for detective lips to rest in between kisses.
it’s a good thing she was an actress, otherwise she might have been a wife,
and she just doesn’t have the hips for that.

Real easy to play dead when it’s so sunny out that window.
My eyes don’t care to be open and watch purple forms
drift against each other and I get my flu vaccine.