A Poem about Luby’s, Written as Very Short Prose

I was going to start by writing about Chaucer,
but then realized I just wanted to use the name
Cafeterias are not about ego or myth
This was not an epic voyage
Luby’s was just for us, No Mother, No Mother Earth
She hated it and He loved it and so we’d
Go to LUBY’S! And I think the booths were maroon
Definitely they had those CHAIRS WITH WHEELS
on dark carpet, and our sweat from Texas would get cold
because of the a/c and the green jell-o we fought each other for
The food was all delicious and to expound upon this would
be a disgrace, a sweet cheapening trick to ruin a purity
Thick beige plastic and divisive migratory traditions
washed down by as much Sprite as possible
Pick your own poison! We were taught autonomy and
Eat all of it and Don’t play with it and Stop crying
Luby’s was the closest I have had to unsupervised gluttony
A hellpit and a sanctuary serving everything except regret

On a Log

They sit looking forward
on a log, side by side by side
feet dangling into river
They are effortlessly balanced
Water is cold
The forest breathes
They sit looking forward on a log
unable to get closer
unwilling to move apart

The river hums
Birds fidget
Days and nights take turns dancing
There is silent and bitter peace
They are resting with each other
by themselves
The log waits
Their feet dangle and they rest
side by side by side

feed insomniacs

Unfulfilled wishes
feed insomniacs
Piranhas, steel-faced and unkind
ruin perfectly good riverboat adventures
at night in the steamy sleepless dark
It is an unfulfilled wish
Remember?
Insomniac carnivores tear fragile wishes
that are shaped like cartoon yellow stars
Pillows falling from comets
in the steamy dark while they try to stay afloat
and not sink into nothing
It feels more than just wishful thinking
but when They bite in the dark,
those stars fall apart too fast to
Remember

Abyss

Enticed by great distances
and future myths memorized
alongside the beats of drum

Hearts beat
We were all once pilgrims
Violent migrants learning the world

Before color and time and sound
had to be accounted for
We set off, violating an abyss

Wood and stone set us across seas
Stars tied onto strings could tangle
We have always moved

We were once all stars
tied onto strings inside boats
sweating together at sea

Searching for unknown corners
that could rest weary beating hearts
Abyss demolished by discovery

Above the sea and under
we move to find our source
Learning the world as its stepped onto

I Dipped This Poem in Pollen

Too much butter upon
not enough bread
Fat and flour
I will be a disappearing act

Flowers have no fat
but make the air much fuller
The flowers in summer
disappear, eaten on bread

This poem smells like earwax
It is putrid
I felt lilies in the heavy air once
I’ve disappeared since then

The lilies smelled like butter
mixed with ancient perfume
I will not vanish, I will disappear
eating lilies

I dipped this poem in pollen
to see if its bees could still find it
They only smell the wax
Putrid disappearing acts

When it's Hot

When it’s hot, you sleep naked
The heart does not sleep
Heat has no room for apology
It is womb

Naked thoughts
liquid
fall from the face
unintentionally

Uncertainty is impossible
There is proof in every drop
When it’s hot, you sleep naked
and the heart does not sleep