My Kitchen Smells of Rot

“Everything’s moving.”

her labored breathing,

“You’ve had one drink, sweetest pea.”

like a sigh, she starts to say something about tomorrow.

Is there any poetry

any atoms of poetry

to look at girls’ profiles

on OKCupid.com

it’s so hot

and the sky and that it’s all yellow

the yellow of some sick storm that’s passed

it was yellow when I looked

and yellow now cut with dark

and I’ve yet to find anyone

I look ‘til dark is cut with yellow

then out the stars

I’m looking by starlight

a search for riverbed baskets, subaqueous

weighted by smoothed breasts

licked by waves

or not by me, anyhow

I listen for the bubbles on the water’s surface

that’s how you know

cut my foot on the nipples

try to pry open the window,

it’s so hot

goddamn,

here:

I’ll put on our favorite record once more

and as it spins I’ll kiss you

I’ve never been to Humboldt Park

I’ll never stop looking

for it would be as a shark who stops swimming, dying,

no matter how few atoms of poetry are in it

we’ll taste them together, the record aspin, the taste of aspic.