Inside that little coffin shell, a tiny 
dead man with a mustache stares. 
‍
This is that guy you've been 
looking for 
your whole 
life, everywhere, and now
‍
he's trapped inside a peanut shell, and 
that shell is in your hand, and you can 
grab his diamond-
tipped 
walking stick 
to do a dance 
naked 

except for his top hat. Because
 
this is the public 
domain, at last, which 
is death, which is when they can look 
you up, and you can't look back. All 

our secrets gushed 
up all over the internet.
The movies we rented.
The posts we liked.
The friends no one knew we had.

‍

Like a nanny with a pram
strolling straight into the traffic

some 
sunny morning
in London or Manhattan. 
‍

The traffic 
didn't stop

not even for a second. 

Like this rainstorm inspired by the sight 
of your 
beautiful yellow umbrella tonight.

‍

From the Latin, torque: to twist. 
The infliction
of it, as
well as the experience of 
its 
infliction.

Rumors, thunder
rumbling, some 

wild applause in a small 
auditorium
after a child’s 
terrible 
performance.

Or the detonation 
of a bomb. 
The hiss
of a missile. 
“The ground 
shook, but we 
didn’t feel it.”

No one was killed.
No matter what they did. 
No one survived
no matter where 
they ran or hid.

The rats of war 
get fat before
they starve 
to death. 
The way 

the shared loud laughter 
of two old 
enemies
is always 
followed 

by mortified silence.

You were Friday & Death.
I was Jekel & Hyde.
You were my mother.
I Alive.

You were God & Satan.
I was Jesus & God.
I was Lost & Nowhere.
You were Single & Hot.

I was Cold & Married.
I was his mind, like an axe.
‍You were his lips like the kiss 
of an eel—his

tongue like the nub of a tongue.

I was wandering lost, holding a fistful of strings—

the end of every one of which was attached to a thing
            that was lifting me—

& I was the blood on my hands.

& I was My Hands in My Hands.
& I was His Cigarette Stub.

& I was Ham (the astrochimp) & I 
was launched 
into space.
I traveled I know not where 
to speak to God in the language 
of God
before I, alone, I came back.

All those beautiful carefree days I spent as
a girl, braiding

my braids & painting my nails & glossing
my lips & scorching my wings & shaving 

my underarms & legs & bleaching 
the hairs on my upper lip & eating
nothing but cottage cheese for weeks
to get ready 

to go to the beach—

The confusion of the past
as fireproof as ash.

The follies of the future
as bulletproof as water. 

Shake this snow-globe 
and an A-bomb
is dropped 
on Niagara 
Falls, followed

by a decade of nuclear
winter, following 
a century of ash-
storms and ice
fire, preceded
by the Age 
of Killer-Ox . 

Strike

a match from this 
souvenir box
of matches, and 
this magnet 
of California 
will catch fire. 

A plastic 
baggie full 
of peacock feathers
thrown into 
some high tree branches.

(There are those who learn
and those who already know.)

A marble of an oceanic globe.

(Some scream. Some don't.)

And even though these knick-
nack spoons are too 
small to eat with and too
shiny to be gold, we 
buy them anyway
to throw away at home.