Improv for Paranoia, or How to Make a Better Cancer #1

"Put this on your status if you know someone who has or had cancer! 
All I want for Christmas is a CURE! 
♥ Dear God, I pray for the cure of cancer. Amen. 
(93% WON'T Copy and Paste this, 
will YOU?) i am NOT one of the 93%.." 


Rats snack in the cupboards
on clean, masculine crumbs
traps clap in the wall
but the blood never runs.

Still Life 1,2, 4-6

Still Life #1

Negation: The light smashing

through dual panes beside

the three of us

long drags of colored paint

in low voices, a cousin’s politics

and in contrast, plucking syncopation

of a piano black.

Still Life #2

Alive in the air

a palm, too many fingers

the cold center hidden in the grey bricks

row after row 

used cars and how easily the extremities 

appear choreographed

Collaborators at the cliff’s image

you wait, he arrives, you come inside

he talks, you return to the street.

Still Life #4

Privilege denies your walking 

any sort of danger: The long-necked,

coddled retard, and her coddling progenitor 

nearly dead with age and dye hesitating 

to cross into the trafficless thoroughfare

You park in the fire lane, four feet from the door

admonishing your safety, obvious

you are not a retread gumming your parents mistakes

riding your fearlessness. 

Still Life #5

This is a place of commerce and your voice

does not fit amongst the vacuumed rugs,

the soft tailored chairs. Could be cancer

but Plotted Justice whispers, “Look for sand.”

Still Life #6 

The things you look & stuff you eat

twirling the cup, you’ve given up 

straightening your posture.

You have never seen this as a metaphor

although you understand it’s basic conceit 

eating Mexican peanuts from a Ziploc 

hidden in your purse.