Gender Characteristics

so we had a few drinks
and I was telling him stuff about
my childhood and after a while he said
that sounds like penis envy to me did you
ever wish you had a penis and I said no
but I wish I had an ovipositor so I could
parasitize my enemies and infest them
with my larvae and he decided
to sit somewhere else
in a different bar.

published in Pavement Saw #7

Grand Tour

First the atlas began to fret, and wheedled in a low voice. Then one
of the Lonely Planet books egged on the National Geographics
until they ruffled their pages in hysteria and the Michelin Guides
started slapping their covers rhythmically against the bookends.

When the Club Med brochures folded themselves into airfoils
and began dive-bombing us, we made a break for the carport,
dragging our hastily-packed luggage behind us, a litter
of outdated and dilapidated maps snapping at our heels.

We found that all roads lead to more roads, with similar
billboards. We drive all day long. Each evening
we arrive at a different city before its gates close
and rent a room filled with clear water.

The video camera runs all night, and prepares
a nutritious breakfast. If a museum opens early,
we spend the morning gliding from room
to room, leaving nothing as we found it.

Even the guards have uniforms of a different hue
when we are finished with them, and all the visitors
have come to believe that Surrealism is the manifesto
of a concealed desire for economic instability and wear
faint greenish halos which they will never see.

Winner of 2003 Mary Roberts Rinehart National Poetry Award
published on Blue Fifth Review Summer 2003