crank operated love songs

you hate when I write
because back-to-front makes you ill
like the anenomes on 32nd street
or the smell of fulton market
I swallow  leftover bird-words
praising the patterns of lint
and the dancing hives you create
and the war-torn children you train
and the spines you twine
and tangle
and wrangle
I call you motherfucker
as a term of dear meat
the cease and desist hasn't stopped
you from collecting my hair
to braid back your sister
into contour line drawings
or tea leaves

smoke houses and you

venison prays at the night time
kneeling on honeycombs, crackled and whispering
they ask the skies for larger antlers
for that kool and the gang album they never got
and for the divorce to be a joke.
in earl gray lights, the tan man passes a note,
silly dear, you are only a woman.