Gorky is at the Philadelphia museum. I may or may not be going to China. I have a What is poetry? assignment. What is Nighttime? Are dreams made of clay? Poppies? Black porcelain?

mikku #12: tinman

the rain problem--to
suffer by avoiding tears
with an umbrella

mikku #11: tinman

was it heart he missed
or god not in the clanking
space? bending was hard.

mikku #10: tinman

swallowed no coin, of
a non-comic medium--
no steel, un-alloyed

mikku #9: tinman

the first cyborg I
ever loved was trying to
"limit exposure"

mikku #8: tinman

what is answered? not
axed. what has the axe done? what
have you with an axe?

mikku #7: tinman

distance is tonic.
a balm note at symphony
close: a seattling

mikku #6: tinman

there. His monkey hand
finds one horizon and shows
how to move across

mikku #5: tinman

negotiation
is a knot tightened until
rope-- lets itself go

mikku #4: tinman

cleansed, lights pore through my
throat and down another night
alley. I vomit end.

mikku #3: tinman

She is a she. He
is a she in his many
open shames. Seams rust.

mikku #2: tinman

he creaks: this is his
rift between a project of
body and body

mikku #1: tinman

Integration: feel-
ingly, my brain sparks inside
its tin cylinder

Grace observed, the table stretches.
I am at the yawning end thinking
of pie. That what is sweet
rots, the bloom of pumpkin
into rum blots thought if thought
were ink. But to write is not to eat.

Who is thanksgiving? Whose
dinner was provided in trust and prior
to subsequent slaughter? I am pilgrim
wandering through family members who
won't last until spring, choosing a guest

to hunt down later in the year.

big bertha

is a dominatrix
not a mammy
see her riding crop
her magic wand
her satin knickers

she is a superhero
always a double-life
sometimes a double
wife, unfulfilled

her brain is ticker-tape

what she wants is
what you cannot want
a casket full of
snakes, a feather
in her cap like macaroni

on big bertha

here is a family
mother father babygirl
mother has on red things you cannot see
father is a raper
babygirl a ditz a ditz a ditz
and here is a machine

was daddy bad before he fed
the monster coins? was I always so easy?
one thing I do know: mom had on those
skivvies before we ever met

the nickleodeon