knots form mysteriously
up and down your headset cord

or in the kinky tail
of a spider monkey

or red-spotted glass
frog tadpole

sometimes polliwog
no that lizard

the one that walks on water
what’s it called

Jesus Christ
where are my smokes

thief
ever get swallowed whole

by a song
tucked inside the mouth of a whale

tickle its tonsils
if it had some

with that feather you pulled off
the end of a long-tailed widowbird

to escape

you’re no starfish
that tattoo of railroad tracks

crawling up your torso
can’t be removed

your appendix won’t regenerate
neither will my soul

sold on the black market
a lump of ambergris

washes ashore
I dare you

to pick it up
without getting fettered

can you spell
gray the American way

without getting indigestion
it’s illegal

to smell this good
anywhere near here

where seasmoke settles
over the island

a farm road disappears
voices whisper

rumors of reunions east
alongshore

no plane
will land this morning

I should have asked as much

as you got
for my leaky reeky heart