FEMALE HOUSE SPARROW ON THE UGLY DARK FUNCTIONAL FLOOR

I was insecure when he stuck
his thumb in my mouth for me to suck on

lying to good lovers
                              about my interest
                              in the searing and canny

but the news stories that I bookmark are the ones
about that man who died in Mississippi after eating a raw oyster
or that NPR story about the dog that was eating tires and
throwing itself against a fence to relieve its pain

all of my diary entries read
"stop wasting time" or "it's getting more difficult to use the bathroom (mentally)"
or "I like when my handwriting is good" or "Grace for the love of god put a napkin in
your lap"

and I'm always referring to
the use of stability,
the use of safety,
the "self-protection of neutral observation"

when so much of the love that I've given
in this life has been euphemistic—

Finding out that cockroaches love the smell of coffee
obliterated me somehow

this is my pervert poem

Washing the floors and browsing rat traps on Etsy
Killed a ladybug with a towel and felt like shit about it

But not too much shit

When my sister's new dog pissed on my shoes
I grabbed his face
I wonder if my mother made the right calls
Moving my seat at the kitchen table

So I couldn't watch myself talk
In the window

I also like to look into people's windows
Lit up at night, from sidewalks and
passenger sides

My mother has asked me often not to leer
 but how lonely to sleep in the car
or watch water drag in the ditch

Masturbating while the electric kettle races to a boil
Drinking coffee from a sweet plastic bottle and
taking pictures of a scarf in a tree—
Only sometimes am I a genius

I'm endeared by days of the week underwear but always reconsidering
I dreamt of tucking a nautilus into a roller skate and pushing it down a hill

Balled up seran wrap on my table.

Crinoline ruffles, frosted glass, oranges coated in cinnamon, green sherbet on pearl spoons, cold English muffins whole and cakey, John Updike and screen doors, predictability and always too much or too little caution

I was always an inhibited muse       
thoughtless and involved

I love you towards my own end
the Jesus end

__

TANKA SLIPPERS

Loose fitting clean clothes
explosive fact, scabby pitch
half-chorus playthings
a slanted unbroken sex
peach twisting on a meathook

So typical growth
So looking to be borrowed
Back-bit and self-full
So bleached out and clean spirit     
Mild look, burn nape offering

__

ON Female house sparrow on the ugly dark functional floor:

I wrote this poem across six month's worth of journal cries/mutterings (hardly entries) during a time when the things that held my interest were the personally indecorous and untoward, the repeatable and ugly (the perverted.) I was spending the most time I ever have with myself and with other people, somehow. Here is [a link to the NPR story about the dog that is mentioned with some liberty in my poem].