i see her sipping tea
she wants to write
the Great American Joke Book
about consumerism
sour-milk yellow sniffling yolk but
they get in the way
the hardcover wesleyan
in a cable-knit sweater
the canadian monthly
masked in a methylin-soaked love letter
hands up baby
hands up
“But if I said it was the only thing that mattered
That everything else was play, was yarn, was
A 40-year-old Knock Knock joke, would you”
their theories enjamb me
up against the wall, headlines
like licorice fingernails
like bricks — she draws blood
the thinking woman left to only sit
and listen to what’s left of rain
sweet and silent, waiting, pried
loose by synthetic rubber.