He could say from experience

that Babe Ruth was an asshole,

but he never said it on the field.

How fucking weird is the knuckle ball?

That was the year Dave Kingman’s pop fly never came down at the Metrodome
Nineteen players were ejected during the Padres/Braves brawl
Angel Mike Witt threw a perfect game against the

Before the nasty glances, which I sense to be for me, I shake my downcast head, grin in disappointment, and mutter “Damn.”

While waiting in my car outside your house I counted thirteen wrinkled ticket stubs I’d tucked inside the glovebox after games
to serve as some reminder of the season so far.

Baseball is, if nothing else, a reason, and so it is everything:

I’m thankful for the throwaways. Like the time the Bears lost in extra innings. Randy Bass, pre-Hanshin Tigers Randy Bass, had committed an error on a routine toss to the pitcher at first. It was

Then something funny happened / after months of imprisonment, / handled like/ animals, less than/ animals, / they started playing baseball.

Signals

When dead whales wash up on your shores,
it's not your insult to heaven, nor your fifteen-

        foot song carried

                       by high tide into flushing

That night in April. / That other night in April. 

soliciting chimps / in the shit cage

Dear Editor,         or         Owl

Attached are poems in which I spin my head three hundred sixty degrees attempting to stare at myself. Attached are poems in which I attempt to eat myself

& spread / my arms out / like a giant squid

I want to be a zygote again. / I want to be a dumb plant.

When clearly it could be a mommy or even a child for that matter.

My god, I remember how badly I wanted her to see.

How To Be an Acclaimed Poet in America

I never saw them but I knew people shot our outhouses.

I have watched too much reality TV about Kimye and teen mothers. This is why I cannot explain April like a normal person.

you wore a shirt with balloons on it, drank whiskey, stood in front of a mirror, had violent ideation

She says she had a dream about bodies packed together, blue & bruised & left to bleed. 

if I could re-wire myself I would
start again a blank heart with no pictures

i bought an essay with someone else’s money when i was 23
just to feel what it was like to steal words
it was the sickest i’ve ever been

The moon is small and perfectly cut.
Blinking between trees like the cursor
you used on your middle school blog.

Miracles come more seldom now.
It’s satellite interference.