“I’m Stepping Up in Singing Sandals, No Use For”

The eye’s desire for relief. I’m the tiger lily bobbing in the heat. And also the neighbor, shaved bald and lifting weights on the balcony. Each petal is the receipt of a shameful dream— a thought we hadn’t wanted to incorporate lolling from my parted mouth. But you know it’s mistakes that make life happen. A cardboard suitcase of beer for the traveler. And if we get too close to the words on this page they soften and warp into an animal lace, some net whose logic won’t reveal itself. I pull our eyes back because I love you. But then you draw them back further still because that sounds like an excuse. The whiny version of Love Hurts loops and curls like ribbon through a scissor, being pulled across the blade. The money in this poem’s easy, if you don’t mind having no thoughts and sitting in one place, while your body changes shape.