in your honor, we plant an acre of blue

a row of collards for you to bouquet or boil

we sing a hymn made of chamomile & kush

sing our lines of sparks & gone suns

until our song is a wall of light so thin

you could miss it so wide it halves the world

& out the bright, you stumble

pat yourself gently &

enough.

1989–2016

that close. edge of

almost. fled. looked

dead. was. tried. kept

it up. kept my

mouth so close. pills

nearer. seer

said. dust dust. was.

then wasn’t. missed.

hole in a night.

that was my face.

almost followed.

river’s no. won’t

mirror. it was

summer. November

so quick. i rocked

all gray. nickel

& sky. my

last winter. just

past my touch. axed

my arms. i wrote

with aim. the year came.

depression food

roma™ brand frozen pizzas—pepperoni—3 for 10

plums 5 hours before mush

nacho cheese doritos + whatever cheese is left + 45 seconds on high

bootleg frosted flakes by the fist

yogurt month past best by so more yogurter i guess

endless wendy’s

instant coffee + hard honey

& dark. bitch, i gagged.

gnarled night, my fucked grill

i gnash double mint & nina while he pipes me up

when nutted, his swisher sweet fingers spoon

what i rocket back in as feed, i pig

sure, i wanted to be stuffed

by what i gave away gladly

it’s just cum, i say his name

as he empties inside my empty

gasping like thawed tilapia

undetectable

soundless, it crosses a line, quiets into a seed

& then whatever makes a seed. almost like gone

but not gone. the air kept its shape. not antimatter

but the memory of matter. or of it mattering. it doesn’t

cross my mind now that it whispers so soft it’s almost

silence. but it’s not. someone dragged the screaming boy

so deep into the woods he sounds like the trees now.

gone enough. almost never here. daily, swallowed

within a certain window, a pale green trail on the tongue

the pale green pill makes before it’s divvied among

the ghettos of blood, dissolves & absolves

my scarlet brand, ritual & proof. surely science

& witchcraft have the same face. my mother

praises God for this & surely it is his face too.

regimen, you are my miracle. this swallowing

my muscular cult. i am not faithful to much.

i am less a genius of worship than i let on.

but the pill, emerald dialect singing the malady

away. not away. far enough. for now.

i am the most important species in my body.

but one dead boy makes the whole forest

a grave. & he’s in there, in me, in the middle

of all that green. you probably thought

he was fruit.

all the good dick lives in Brooklyn Park

& where do they keep the good shit in your town?

that fair-trade nana, them gushy gushy schools?

when i roll up on dude house & ain’t seen

no grocery store in miles & there’s