He held his anxiety close
like a goldfish in a plastic baggie
leaking through his coat his cell
phone down to 20% how many folks
did he fuck over in the overhead
bunk of a tractor-trailer you wonder
as a ham-radio-operator shaves
the hair around your anal valve
my aerodynamic angel casting halos
into the air as if I were a Coke bottle
standing tall at the local carnival
those rubber rings out of reach
but for the barker’s voice egging me on
to give it another try my cock
poking out of a fag hag’s knock-off bag
a Louis Vuitton without the tags
if only he could accept my mother
jacking off the neighbor’s dog he too
would lay off on the sauce and commit
all 12 steps to his shrink at once
think nothing of those cotton-candy
colored sheep leaping over from
this world into a dozen traffic lights
burning red down the boulevard why not
go ahead and grab the bull running
rampant through a china shop
made in China, ass-burger murder
on the rise over billions served
my Alabaman stuck in Newtown again
without a protein bar or a bottle
of water from a virgin spring it’s time
to clear the decks sail on through
military bed sheets tucked and cornered
with all-night farts & armored cars
slipping gears—our crank-shaft gasket-
blown treasure trove bottomed out.

***

TIMOTHY LIU is the author of ten books of poems, including the forthcoming Don’t Go Back To Sleep (Saturnalia Books, 2014) and Let It Ride (Station Hill, 2015). He lives in Manhattan with his husband.