Michael Dickman

Something breathes
on a dead deer
and the hair inside its ears
wave
...

For John Guare

I used to live
in a mother now I live
in a sunflower
...

First I get a father
from some city
of fathers

One with a neck
...

There is a way
if we want
into everything
I'll eat the chicken carbonara and you eat the veal, the olives, the small and glowing
loaves of bread
...

Daffodils shimmy
in the dilated onion grass
their hearts out

Shelovesme Shelovesmenot

Smeared
against the sidewalk

Urine left in the toilet all day simmers under halogens

Listening
to someone else breathe
listening to static cling

Time to wipe down the refrigerator with a handful of ibuprofen and a bandanna
soaked in tonic water

Butter-butter
Black lemons
Pine-Sol


•


Daffodils shimmy
in the dilated onion grass
their asses off

Other yellow flowers I don't see you yet

Noon
tears down the street
a terrible kid
on a brand-new

Now I remember the faces of tulips

Speechless

Yellow peaches
sweat inside brown
paper bags

Press your forehead against the pit in the perfect peach and everything will stop
moving how about that?


•


Daffodils shimmy
in the dilated onion grass
their eyes closed

Close your eyes I close my eyes

Families of worms work their yellow way up through clouds in the mustard air

Slams into the yard

Pollen
lies down on everything
it just lies down
sun the color of
photosynthesis and
that's fine

Birds bark inside houses

Yellow fingers work the yellow spine
...

The mare kicks
in her darkening stall, knocks
over a bucket.

The goose…

The cow keeps a peaceful brain
behind her broad face.

Last light moves
through cracks in the wall,
over bales of hay.

And the bat lets
go of the rafters, falls
into black air.
...

The redbreast kills
and kills itself against
the window
...