Feed
July-light
an egg wash through
the camping tent. Your basset hound
turns the air
with its huffing. Head-high
off bad weed, we sweat
+ sit still, naked
as church candles.
Too hot for sex
[though I think of it],
we search for ticks.
I’ve never been touched
like this. I tell you
to keep the bugs
we find in a Ziploc bag—
that if we tape
the bodies to a calendar,
we can track the cause
if we fall to a fever
or fatigue of unnatural
intensity. It’s something
like a week
to know. [I hope,
in a week, we’ll still be
seeing each other.] Don’t
worry, you say.
Then feed a tick
to your dog.
Purity Ring
I break
a Red Lobster biscuit
into bite-sizes.
Besides
the butter + grease, a ring
from the mall [foreclosure sale]
on my wedding finger.
I figure others see my parents + me,
in a corner booth, + believe we’re happy.
Happen to be celebrating.
Celibacy, my mother says,
until God wakes you up
for your wife.
Why has God, then,
kept me sleeping on women but wanting
to sleep with men?
Imagining, she insists, not even
engaging in sex, is sinful. Full of all-
you-can-eat-shrimp,
I eye the pile of pink tails,
my face getting hot, + the ring, from my
fidgeting, slips
right off.
Brother
Remember the summer
you + I were yard-pirates?
The town junk curb-checked
for the Goodwill pick up
+ the trucks a week, then two, late;
you, determined, to make
a small fortune off metal
at Holts Summit scrap, + I
part of the muscle, with nothing else
better to do? Remember
the kettle grill, toppled but majestic
on Debbie’s lawn? Remember
you stopped, in the middle
of the road, + we rushed
to lug it? Who knew
the weight of a kettle grill
filled with bees? Who knew
the cover would uncover exactly
when we had it? If I did,
I promise, I would have taken
the heavier side + their
riot. I would have
told you, let’s keep going,
I bet there’s something great
up ahead.