Who sews the patches to your jacket,
and when they prick your skin
do you just laugh it off,
pretend like your back is a map?
Your spine is a mountain range,
your rib cage a passing phase
like the earth’s getting better
and your body’s the universe
your body’s the universe
your body’s the universe

In a past life I ran with dinosaurs
I carried a spear and some water,
but I’d never seen anything
like the fire I discovered
in your hair and in your teeth,
and underneath your fingernails
were more wonders unfound,
more songs without sound,
more sinister snowflakes
bouncing off the ground
And I never found a rex like you,
never could connect with you,
never went neck and neck with you
And our eyes never met,
and our feet never got wet
And still they were fettered
but I’ve never felt better and better
and I won’t let you get away so easy.

It’s the hunt for pelt
to cover you in the wintertime
and make you feel less alone, while
the dead leaves and stray snow flakes fall around you;
while the trees and rain leave you
stranded in the cold.

Autumn looks lovely in the city
while you and a lover stroll down the walk-way,
holding hands and drinking coffee
and commenting on how cute
or how darling
the autumn-couples look together.

Autumn looks lovely in the country
while you both sit on your porch
with a dog at your feet
and a swing in your tree;
the one in your front yard.

Autumn is the preparatory season
in which you gather your rations
and a significant other
to tide you over ’till the sun comes up
and reaches down
to hold your hand again.

But I know in my heart,
        or the back of my mind,
that there will be no revolution–
        just tiny fits of rage,
        spasms of insight,
        small deluges of inspiration.

But when the windshields break,
I scatter the glass like seeds, sewn to grow
ice sculptures and love,
        and giant towers that will     loom

above our heads.

The latter are unhelpful
weeds.
So I root them out,
not with a spade, but
a molotov coctail.

In the flash before
I closed my eyes I noticed
the lights stretching like the worn
out mothers, cradling their children
close to their breasts, screaming
at the scene of my arrival;
stretching like the tears
coating their red cheeks.

In the dark I could hear
the shrieking industrial demons,
spouting their mating calls and
berating my interuption.
I disturbed their ritual dancing.
They were halted.

I heard men sing to their gods,
into their phones,
into the air.
They asked how
and why and where
and I think they could have saved my soul,
realizing its mortality.

In the din I could feel
stone on my skin, rust
staining my rags, my
thin riches draining through
the rip in my scalp.
My heart palpitated, my lungs
all but deflated,
and far after it was far too late
to apologize for permanant damages
I smiled.

Sprawled out and tracks running
down my arms, my spine
I stared at myself.
I stared in myself.

And as a closing thought,
final words, only they were images,
I imagined myself there,

dead-center of the Cork street intersection,
Kalamazoo, Michigan.

And we were victorious.