I have wasted these curses on minor disappointments.

retracing frowns is how we forego boundaries, to chase greener passports.

When we raise our hands now, the air is flush / with vacancies.

in the epoch of biodiversity dwindle is a vestigial ritual.

After I call the cops to ask for a protective order / I read about the girlfriend of a serial killer.

Girl is attacked / in a park near home, and / before running, is called / crazy bitch.

Today my friend is late / 9 a.m. a cold spell / I go buy a coffee / from a nice coffee shop

a mouth began / in the south east corner / of the continent where / a tribe of teeth / once shared rice

in 2029, i wake up next to a stranger. / the word husband for us is like paprika — / it adds color.

There’s a phrase for it, the way / I’m lately loving like a river / is pressed to my door

my hair sways long / black streams cascade / down my back / somewhere, skies illuminate after somber rain

It is unseemly to blow your nose into a tablecloth. If you share a / bed with another man, keep still. If you pass a person pissing, do /not greet him.

It came from a catalogue. I opened / the plastic bag inside the plastic bag / and out tumbled fabric fine as flesh.

The chalk taste of prescription pill / washed down / with too-sweet lemonade. I only take it / because you do, and I wonder / if you get high so you can tolerate me.

O bobolink. The bobolink is dead / at my door — found leaving my apartment / to school then to work. After some searching, / I guess it’s a bobolink—this lemon- / headed crow, this crumpled parachute cloth.