by Tommy Pico
I can’t help but get the beeline
I mean feeling that Beyoncé tamps herself
down
around Jay to not overwhelm the world
with her ocean I opened
my mouth and dust plumed out
years before the petrichor
I smelled it miles away I just knew
it I just knew I would also
PRO-GUN RUSSIAN BOTS FLOOD TWITTER AFTER MASS SHOOTING
flood
Bags from the bodega in the canopy of cum
trees A webbing
from heaven
in another town I don’t set
down
I don’t call
home.
Susan Cain says, “In our culture, snails are not considered valiant animals—we are constantly exhorting people to ‘come out of their shells’—but there’s a lot to be said for taking your home with you wherever you go.”
Track 15: “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone” by the Temptations. When yr stories about a person come secondhand. Companion song to “Missing” by Everything But The Girl, both focused on the one who left. I mean I guess papa was resilient in the sense that home was wherever he went, just without his family. The kid’s inheritance after papa died? Alone.
Oh, the markets in Mexico are amazing Blue is fluid
and compassionate
The sky so blue with clouds close and puffy like a child’s drawing
Here in Guadalajara the market is three stories. We buy smoked
salmon, limes, and tortillas for a few pesos and it feeds
us on the road for several days
The market
in Acapulco. Here we find strawberry cake
tamales and deep-fried rice
tacos sprinkled with sugar. We sleep
on the beach one night and wake up to find the sand
covered with rat
prints
We’re told they live in the palm
trees and come out at night
to scavenge crumbs on the beach. Food stands
everywhere. My first street
taco was in Santa Ana, in the Sonoran
Desert
Flour tortilla and beef
Cut up fruit, mostly mangoes and papayas,
watermelon or pineapple, sprinkled with chili
powder and fresh lime
Mmm, pineapple. My favorite breakfast.
Tamales, tortas, empanadas, fresh helados Vendors line
the bus and train stations selling through windows Oaxaca,
food
food
food
Papas fritas tacos Scrambled eggs in chili
sauce with beans and cheese Tamales wrapped in banana
leaves, close to the coast the blue gleaming
coast Frothy hot chocolate Dark
mole Crispy roasted grasshoppers in the zócalo in Oaxaca
City. Michoacán the creamy emerald The pyramid
at Pátzcuaro lake Morelia, colonial city, this wonderful
family—you see we
were so tired and broke
and hungry
They gave us money for the bus, sent us
on our way with love. A woman on the crowded
bus, sleeping child wrapped
in her brilliant rebozo
On the road to Acapulco we catch
a ride with a truck
driver. We stop at a ramada by the side
of the road to eat
The ladies try to teach me to make corn
tortillas. We laugh so much, the dough, sticking to my hands
never makes it to the comal. Tepic and Nayarit
and the river,
bathing finally.
Laughing as the crowd gathers on the bridge to watch
Loco Americanos
Fresh zest
after our long walk and the long ride hitchhiking We gather
our things from the riverbank and move on,
waving at the crowd. Buenos suerte! They yell
and wave back. Laughing. Waves lapping Crash A crush
of bedrock
to resist the crush of time
I’m trying over these last years to fiddle-faddle
my thoughts into the salad spinner for you son
[in three voices, like a braid: Chelsea Thicket]
American holly, Ilex opaca; EYE-lex oh-PA-cah
Emerald Sentinel red cedar, Juniperus virginiana; joo-NIP-er-us ver-jin-ee-AY-nuh
winter hazel, Corylopsis spicata; kor-i-LOP-sis spi-KAH-ta
What’s this town called?
I’m not asking you
I’m asking them:
The Ohlone. Costanoan, Muwekma. Duwamish, Suquamish, Muckleshoot. Shawnee. Lenni-Lenape. Tocobaga, Mocoso, Pohoy, Uzita. Lumbee, Piscataway, Nacotchtank. Multnomah. Anishinaabe. Ojibwa, Ottawa, Potawatomi.
Dear reader,
I can’t stand
in front of the audience
in Columbus, Ohio, without wondering
how that last person felt leaving
the ancestral
homeland
for the Indian
territory
and You did this to me
What is the difference between being alone and being
lonely?
Alone
is a physical
feeling, literal proximity
Just not being around other bodies
Lonely
is a desire, the urge
for a companion or sympathetic compatibility
Something on the other side
of the country. Something shivering
or like
feeling incomplete, right?
(But there are so many people inside me.)
The Earth Similarity Index (ESI) is a number calculated from an exoplanet’s radius, density, surface temperature, and escape velocity. It ranges from 0 to 1, and any planet above a score of .8 could be considered “Earth-like.” So we find an exo-planet Luyten b. All these classifications telling us how its orbit is hospitable for liquid water, that it likely has a comfortable range of surface temperatures. Potentially a rocky world, around a quiet star not regularly sending out solar flares. Then it turns out his favorite book on OkCupid is Atlas Shrugged. Can’t do it sorry Next planet.
We’re halfway through three thoroughly dirty martinis that he’s paying for because he’s a lawyer and is like “oh you’re just a writer, I’ve got this” like I’m a hobby, which I suppose writing is for people who don’t do it very well but I digress I’m doing my wet eyes when he takes a look at me like he’s seeing me for the first time and confesses, “my partner and I are looking for a third,” which he’d carefully not mentioned before and it’s like ok girl next planet.
The Gaia hypothesis offers that climate change and the rise of civilizations are intimately linked, that life has a necessary impact on its environment. That on any planet, anywhere, at any time, “civilization” will always cause an Anthropocene. There will always come a reckoning. Termite ridden ships of planets sinking to the bottom of the rocky sea of the galaxies.
Let’s consult the oracle
shall we? Webster’s Dictionary defines
a fart as an intransitive verb meaning to expel intestinal gas from the anus, often vulgar. From the Middle English ferten, farten; akin to Old High German (not unlike the dude I blew at the abandoned park in Prenzlauer Berg) Ferzan, to break wind. Old Norse freta, Greek perdesthai, Sanskrit pardate, he breaks wind. First known use: 13th century.
I’m pardating all over
this Virgin America Metro
North Port Authority What can I say
there’s something about a man 6'6 and over
that makes me want to confess my guts
out all the feelings normally lock-
and-car-keyed in the boot
of my body, like some kind of common lover
It’s deeply whatever I eat
another banana w/bullseye eyes trained on the thighs
of his face
by which I mean his eyes Nursery Web Spiders
Pisaura mirabilis
in southern Europe grow in the summer,
hibernate in winter, reach adulthood in spring,
reproduce and then die
ORLANDO POLICE TESTING AMAZON’S REAL-TIME FACIAL RECOGNITION
in the fall During mating the male presents some nummy nums
to the female before committing thanatosis,
aka “playing possum,” to avoid being eaten
during sex I was like, wouldn’t she just eat him anyway?
But apparently most predators only want live prey
(PS: remember when Martin called Cole “Thicky Ricardo”?)
Some things you prefer to do
alone
like shit. Some things you prefer
to be appreciated
Like a fart
I mean wit Accidentally
typo’d “author” to “authot” so guess I’m an au-thot now
Track 16: “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” by Hank Williams. No comment.
This is going to sound like an inelegant
complaint but I’ve grown road weary khaki thin
sleeveless hooded t-shirt city made of strangers
Strange woodgrain shapes in the shadowy penis
of the city night Everyone
I see these days
is someone I’ve known for 20 minutes
which frankly isn’t enough
time
to take off the strings, to stop tap
dancing along a joke
or an anecdote
Honestly what do you expect? I’m not saying yr broken but I’m saying you’ve fragmented The compartments you’ve created to hold the different parts of yourself leave you fully jigsaw’d YES the standard of the ancestors is high, but they take their cue from you Imagine a yellow light around you This is a light of your making The ancestors have gifted your hands with the contours of words bursting from your finger ends It sounds Dr. John says, putting down his notebook to buzz in the next appointment, like you don’t trust yourself
Shark in the sea
an approximation
Effigy
a series of gels Chris Kraus crisscrossing Kriss
Kross’ll make you jump, jump Palimpsest
style until
a version
of my color stands
in line behind you at the Boston
Market in the college town
at the bookstore
in the city
where the only other thing I’ve seen is the airport and the backseat and the backhand of waiting to red eye check-in on zero sleep
See, this all sounds like an inelegant
complaint, “inelegant,”
which itself is a stubby snout
of a word. The bombs in Austin
and Flint water
keeps
comin
I had just crept into a warm robe, from the memory of a warm bath in the warm NDN casino hotel room on an unseasonably cold day, splayed on the still-made light lavender-grey queen, just me and the tine of a personal cheese pie and a Vinho Verde robotically clicking thru late night cable TV pundit comedians and reality housewives when Wilkes facetimes me and it’s so jarring I immediately reject and text her “wtf FACEtime? are u actively trying to torpedo this frondship?” “Ask Siri where’s hell, and go there” she shoots back a smooth 12 minutes later. “That was a tote bag dial” and even so, I’m freaking delighted out of my gourd. I got it, the life I wanted. Leapfrogging gig to gig not worried if I’m gonna make rent—a profesh yarn-spinner. I just wish
my friends cd be here.
My mom is the one who got me into The Cranberries in the first place, which makes me very cool. We converted our garage into an art studio where she’d turn paintings and sculptures into sound installations to the tune of “Hollywood” off To the Faithful Departed or “How” off Everyone Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We. It’s no wonder she loved all these songs about love and breakups and like refugees and the ozone layer but then again the acorn doesn’t fall too far from the oak tree
Cranberries, of the subgenus Oxy-CO-ccus of the genus Vax-IN-ium, in North America probably refers to Vaccinium mac-ro-CAR-pon. The day I read about Dolores O’Riordan’s death the songs all come back like a bullet the songs I haven’t listened to since my parents split up and my mom would lock herself in the studio blaring the songs so loud you can’t think of anything else and I’d crumple in the frame, cheek flush
against the other side of her closed door
[in three voices, like a braid: Meadow Walk]
purple moor grass, Molinia caerulea; mo-LEE-nee-uh cuh-ROO-lee-uh
Korean feather-reed grass, Calamagrostis brachytricha; cally-ma-GROSS-tuss brack-ee-TRY-ka
bright yellow fernleaf yarrow, Achillea filipendulina; ack-uh-LEE-uh fill-uh-pen-doo-LINE-uh
Listening to a podcast on malnutrition
at the Whole Foods
hashtag late stage capitalism
[in three voices, like a braid: Flyover]
bigleaf magnolia, Magnolia macrophylla; magnolia macro-FYE-luh
umbrella magnolia, Magnolia tripetala; magnolia try-PET-ah-luh
sweetbay magnolia, Magnolia virginiana; magnolia vur-jin-ee-AY-nuh
“Ben Affleck’s Massive Back Tattoo Mocked”
lol, good one CNN. Who cares about the “president’s” unconstitutional shenanigans and the NDAs and the NRAs? We’re talking Ben Affleck’s back
IS ***** GIVING AUTHORITARIANISM A BAD NAME?
Track 17: “Harvest Moon” by Neil Young. Focus on the part where he sings about dreaming the night away. Imparting the listener to come closer. I have something I want to say, the throat clearing of tradition. Is everyone under the impression that this is a romantic song? It’s such a perennial wedding jam but isn’t it about remembering someone who died or at least broke up with you? “I loved
I’m on one of those Twitter
chains (brace yourself for some annoying,
thoroughly modern love-in-the-time-of-apps bullcrap)
something like “Describe Yourself in an Album Cover,”
someone tags me and ten
people
and Leo
which is the first time I’ve seen his
screenname since before we broke
up and there’s something like a thrill
that also feels arthritic
and like nostalgia
like a creepy nostalgia
the way a harpsichord sounds
but also like a safety of loving someone without condition
until the condition comes
by which I mean DEEPLY CONFUSING
Track 18: “Crazy” by Seal. Now this song is bombast. But it’s true. You have to try. You’re not getting a thing by cooping up yr actions, Teebs. Word to the thighs. Also is this or is this not about an elder doing drugs for the first time asking for a friend
but then Leo likes my
response and a few other of my tweets
and then we’re watching each other’s Instagram stories
again and he winds up in my DMs
making one of his dumb puns
about that really popular gay
movie and then we’re lobbing
them back and forth almost like a sports metaphor
if I didn’t find sports metaphors so disgusting
and it’s friendly
but not flirty
not suggestive
but suggesting something
new
in a way that makes me think of the possibilities of jagged spring
[in three voices, like a braid: Wildflower Field & Radial Plantings]
prairie sage, Salvia azurea;
tall tickseed, Coreopsis tripteris;
willowl
eaf sunflower, Helianthus salicifolius
I guess this is a dirge
to the future I thought we could have
Not all plants were meant to grow together
in the same microclimate. Some things grow apart instead.
Heat is a vital broker between separate things. Yes, don’t let it burn. But also, don’t let it fade.
Recognize attraction without pathologizing each other: We tried. Everything. Both of us, hard. I’m on the other side of another closed door but I know what the room looks like and I don’t need to be in there. The train stopped running. Interstate trucking, global air travel, containerized shipping left the hanging train hanging
Track 19: “Up the Ladder to the Roof” by The Supremes. This must have stuck in Diana’s craw bc this got famous after she left but I digress. The wonder of being closer to the sky. The heavens. You don’t actually see them that much better being higher tbh I mean if that’s the conceit I would say get out of the city to see heaven much better but that’s too wordy I guess. Shut off the light to see the lights.
And even there, to have engines of appetites in a city in a state in a nation in a world in a solar system in a galaxy in a universe where the only constant is change—body roll with the punches and the punchlines and the I can’t stand the rains. Yes, our High Line stopped running, but it didn’t go away
We bust
the olives before shaving meat sleeves
from its pit. I can feel the chili seeds
from the backseat
of the maroon Honda in Santa Fe 25 years ago.
The ubiquity of garlic
breath.
I’m obsessed with softening, the going in between.
Dear Leo I mean dear reader
sigh
I still indulge wisps of the thought process
that leads me to cut in front of him in line
in my cow skull mind Bratty flirt getting him rock
hard w/even the slightest denim swipe against his zip fly
“Fuck,” he’d say, growling into my neck.
In the park not far from where we first met, in the seats by the popsicle stand. Blackberry ones were the best. Mango, second to the best. Coconut was trash. “I think you want to be with someone, so clearly so deep. It just doesn’t feel like you want to be with me.” Leo looked up at me full Eeyore face. “I been thinkin the same thing.”
You’re a shade
You mince the length of the sidewalk with me,
sit where I sit, on the sectional
or on the jet plane
and someday you peel from me like a rind
