Cheeks wet with tears, I croak—Jessica, you are the biggest fucking cunt in Somerville.
She giggles like a female alien, inhales serenely, and says Thank you.

I put on my suit every day for work.
It takes three hours.

It’s like the menu was created for those of us born with skeletal and jaw problems. Clam chowder, broiled cod, boiled carrots—foods that deliver without crunch.

The stars have no proof / of life but smolder regardless, maggots / feasting on the sky’s vast corpse, and like them / you were science before you were fiction.

“Aaron met him in New Jersey, coming back from his twice-annual visit to his sister’s in Cherry Hill, and within twenty minutes he’d asked Max to come home—to live.”

the dog was lucky enough to catch
it mid-air, the bird flying low
searching for worms

or seed. The burial
is quick, without
ceremony. Some preservation…