Unsigned

all these clouds outside my window made a nice bib for an especially sloppy pie eating contest sunrise, all kinds of berries smeared. now it's pigeon shit gray with the shopping carts clanking down the alleys. all the traffic lights winking like betty page.

you read that inscription that i felt a little queasy and naked writing in my chicken scratch two minutes before i saw you, but wrote it anyway so you could find it *later*. maybe when you felt like fishing for it. maybe stumbling on it drowsy before you went to sleep. maybe with stuff ahead of your day---hopefully something nice that you could arch your spine to when you thot about it, like the way your whole body sighed and curled a little when you talked about dancing all over the place.

*LATER* being the key fucking word, natalie.

you shouldn't say certain things to me, you know. when you told me you read that paragraph i sent you the other day out loud to yourself---to get the/my voice right!?---jesus fuck, i wanted to club you on the spot. toss you over a shoulder and find a nice hospitable cave with a cool breeze and a mattress with no sheets or blankets. me as the only alternative smirking heat source. you can't say things like that. not in that little unsure voice that changed when it came out.

especially since you turn me into a pack rat. just sorta wanting to keep a bunch of stuff that i didn't have the guts to try and steal even tho i love stealing. keep your face tucked inside that hood a little bit longer, just because i like the way it looks with only a little crinkled, rain-licked hair against your chin. figure out a way to keep that antenna inside you bent right so the reception stayed perfect between your lips and eyes smiling. just making that sneaky sound in your throat that seems to surprise and tickle-out certain expressions that i can mainline. maybe i just love looking at you. i get to say that without feeling guilty because it's true. if somebody pulled out a stop watch over at benny's way back when, i was there in under a second easy. you don't seem so much painted, as carved. and you have this effect on me.

i get tense sometimes, nervous, and this fucking billiard's triangle comes out of nowhere trying to cram all of me into its ugly shape---so am i allowed to tell you when i got to touch you the morning you left this crazy pool cue cracked every ball so hard inside me, in a thousand directions, all the numbers burned off?

in oliver there are lots of orchards handy, with cherries and apricots and peaches hanging out along the highway eager to be stolen if anyone should happen to be strolling by. there's a river that snakes thro the valley for a few miles and i'm told it's higher and faster than it's been in 40 years and i wonder how many bridges you've been flushed under because that's always been my favorite part. there's a lake, half a mile long, with a raft at one shore shaded by willow trees, big cozy old thing, that you can take out at night that drifts a couple hundred yards into absolute darkness with only the moon drooling on the water and buttering the sky. and there's a big ass mountain with the profile of an indian that takes a couple hours to climb through wild flowers and cactus and the occasional deer nosing around after you hop the fence of the farm beneath it and trespass...

this is a little too long, but then yesterday felt a little too short. your fault on both counts.