Row v. Wade

During Adult Swim, mothers (expectant) drop their babies in,

amphibious.  They say you have gills til you're three and sentences

warm your blood, untangle webbed toes.  Alienated from amniotic fluid

before you can multiply.  I'm spinning alone in the polka-dotted

intertube, kiddie pooled, propelled by polished fingers, wet and wild

and chlorinated to my ankles.  I wear life jackets in sand, inflatable

wings that (alas!) do not protect from untertow—you must have

fearlessness, which infants do, and urine, screaming.  Someone blows a

whistle, children run—walk—and goggle, fall in love with lifeguards,

voices deepened recently.  Sun retreats, we hope it won't rain, but

they leap anyway, bodies incomprehensible trajectories, eyes open,

skin slowly burning.  Bandages curl, fingers wilt, and I will never be

a frog again.

Carbon Footprints (title)

Jesus was the twelve dinosaurs

before you were born

and rode on his back

avoiding oversize beestings,

mammoth blisters.

Suicide Note:

What is the point,

I don't even like sprinkles.

The Electric Age

Before you turn thirteen, dolls have spleens and battery acid

martinis. You're downstairs practicing piano, which plays by itself

and glows like a jellyfish.  Cats are fur-covered aluminum labyrinths,

robotic green eyes that understand when you whisper sadnesses.

Asparagus will make you disappear, and cars are the best pets, because

you can climb inside and leave.  You can cry when they are traded in

for something newer, rest your head against wood siding and feel your

heart split because the drive to the grocery store will never be the

same.  Gardens are for animatronic spiders and earthworms that speak

in verse.  You can sing into a trowel and skip through sprinklers in

dirty underpants.  When it rains, you scream as your insides

malfunction. If you poke your finger through your baby brother's soft

skull, to feel what's inside, it isn't really your fault. The worst

that happens is no television.