THUMB, THROAT, AFFIDAVIT
At this point your credit score
will be helpful. Turn in your old train tickets
and walk the way you have always walked,
feet turned out, heels light as oars.
Request letters of reference from those
proper to you,
those who speak for you when you are held,
speechless. The grocer finds evidence you once
stole candy, and in doing so,
proves your existence,
young, unafraid of the law, desired. Another
remembers the treehouse that grows
silver with age, lumber turning back to forest.
Have you heard the phrase Lend me your hands?
Your parents, when they were still in love,
learned each other’s signature. Angle after loop,
teaching one another how to become another.
DENTIST'S LOVE SONG
Love, the back of your
mouth is visible and delicate
as mushrooms, caves,
or even moths that come out
at night after painting sugar
on tree bark, feathery,
blanched and translucent
from flashlights. Had I
a hundred tongues yours
would be the kindest and
most radiant: the last
time I saw anything shine
like your gums was at
a pond encircled with
cattails and coarse tipped
grasses on which beetles
climbed, hard-shelled
and bright as hammers.