All the buildings are idle    your city     your townspeople

insist on immediate action     with track lighting       Attractive

spikes of lightning bolts       fastening a striking brushfire

onto a congregation of bitter cherry trees      Mmmm toasted almond

Can you give what they want     be an honest absentee    It’s true

most questions are commands       crooked military states

Your driveway lined          with bottle rockets         And on

the lawn in generous piles     soiled party

dresses          fishnet wedding veils        the bizarre fetishes you

hide from even yourself        queasy     secretly yearning for the life

of an American         Girl doll       and a hospital ward for

those with bruises      from bumping into coffee tables

Where from a bedside window              I mistake

a feisty robin       for a cardinal in heat     The failing

peripheral vision doesn’t notice     the poisonous fog    This digression

is the mouth        of a river         spewing into        another

for Josh Y

*

Stephen Danos is author of Playhouse State (H_NGM_N Books, 2012). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in American Letters & Commentary, Anti-, Bateau, cream city review, Court Green, Forklift Ohio, and elsewhere. He is editor-in-chief of the online journal Pinwheel, assistant editor for YesYes Books, and lives in Seattle.