From the album "Elephant Eyelash" 



it starts with you 

on a mattress in your parents' old room, 

clipping your toenails into the room 

like the room will fade 

and you will move 

onto other rooms 

and you will go 

to other places. 

then the wedding, 

then the woman passed out 

in the driver's seat 

at the order board at white castle. 

we woke her up and she went 

'round to the pick up window 

like she knew exactly where she was. 

then i wept 

with my face in your night shirt, 

trying hard as hell to say 

"until death seperates us," 

loosening the skin on your breast bone. 

i painted your nails 

and you sleep 

while i write all this down. 



there was a moth caught in the soapdish 

laminated in lye 

will you still remember me well 

if i don't get to two-o-o-five 

my dead line gemini. 



when we're on different sides of the globe 

i thought we'd keep our veins tangled 

like a pair of mic cables, 

and if there ain't enough slack to reach 

that we'd solder them together 

and across oceans they'd stretch. 

our faces reflected in seperate windshields 

and all our body hair pricked up 

an elephant eyelash. 

should we be tempted by thief or by saint 

it seems i leave you and you stay 

to crowd the cage and curse. 

but don't regret the done dirt, 

there is no life plan set, 

you just swallow the cold 

and follow your breath until death 

now even if the will to sleep persists 

i can't, 'cause a harsh cloth grazes my blisters. 



there was a moth caught in the soapdish 

laminated in lye 

will you still remember me well 

if i don't get to two-o-o-five 

my dead line gemini. 



today i fell asleep in a bath of hair. 

hair that once sprouted from my own 

white wet chalk follicles. 

i swallow a coal 

and follow my breath 

and i did it with the grapefruit soap 

thinking of you. 

bathed, shaved, and oiled, 

your legs are two skinny dolphins swimming 

between the mattress and the layers of bedding 

turning in your drug dry sleep. 

when i ask you to kiss my pulse 

you offer to start the shower. 

i want a verb and you give me a noun. 

what do you dream up while i tongue you down. 



there was a moth caught in the soapdish 

laminated in lye 

will you still remember me well 

if i don't get to two-o-o-five 

my dead line gemini. 



you know my build 

you know my size 

the degree to which my eyes 

are astigmatic.