How I passed the Comprehensive: Lights out at 7:30, a poem.

Top drawers no longer
mine filled with

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa socks too small
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa for my feet.

he is growing up
He is growing out
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa His space extends
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa beyond bunk beds.

The bookshelves are packed
stacked with old volumes

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Sherlock Holmes handed down
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa & blocked out by a plastic fire truck.

“I lost my first tooth today”
pressed under a pillow

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa that smells of apple juice
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa not sweat.

a first grader who wants
to be a fireman (not a writer)

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa HE is growing up
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa HIS brother is growing out.

delinquent blogger updates

I will make my home

in a southern state (a blue state,

but warm enough to burn cheeks

red)

a home where we’ll name our

hurricanes

like children

watch them go:

Kyle breaks every window on the first floor

Emily smashes the car

the next year Victor floods the basement

a foot and a half of

ocean and rain

and busted pipes

(as long as they don’t break our hearts)

we’ll hang their satellite pinwheels

on the refrigerator

and sigh

they’re only young so long

before they’re gone

taking the basketball,

the cat,

and the

sound from the wind chimes

I’ll be old here

among orange trees, fruit rats, and the smallest

geckos we’ll ever see

darting

under

Spanish moss covered trees

dying like

ballerinas

covered in silver ribbons

pirouetting off a dark stage

gentle and beautiful,

quiet

like sleep

early mornings in the house my father built

early morning and the sound of my dad's work shoes on the kitchen floor

leaving behind my great-grandmother's quilted coccoon for
orange slice shadows in the hallway and the cold wooden banister gripped
with tiny fingers so i wouldn't slip on the stairs in my
red flannel footie pajamas that haven't asked me to grow up, yet

six a.m. and bleary-eyed, my dad and his brief case in the kitchen
reading from a box of raisin bran with milk spilled on his tie
all grown up with three kids and a house he built himself
my mom still upstairs in their bed sleeping in his warm imprint

bright kitchen light and heat from the woodstove hot on my cheeks
standing on the botton stair, my voice squeeky with leftover sleep
my messy hair, curly like his, smoothed by his freckled hand
my dad calls me by a nickname that tells me i haven't grown up, yet

putting his brief case on the counter and cereal bowl in the sink
the volkswagen rabbit running rough, warming up, waiting for my dad
padding butter on a slice of white bread for me, crumbs fall snowy
on the sleeve of his navy blue suit, the one my mom says matches his eyes

early mornings i woke up for bread and butter and orange air
my grandmother's quilted coccoon waiting warm for me to return
with crumbs on my footie pajamas and a calmer collection of curls
after sharing my dad with the hot woodstove and quiet house

now i wake early mornings grown up, listening to my own work shoes on the kitchen floor

tea time

back broken by the lifting of lumber, jack could
do nothing but rest & wait for the return of po-
sterity through a slumbering regiment; sticky p-
otato chip hands, hot dogs eaten raw from the f-
reezer, falling asleep in his brown arm chair,
jack, white wrapped in long john coveralls, dri-
ed in the heat of the electronic hearth glowing
three’s company & draining battery lives till no
remote could change the arid airwaves—like sand
through an hourglass so passed the days of jack’
s life—just watching the same channel over & ov-
er & over again till it all was rerun & he could
predict the future & control time in thirty min-
ute intervals & in a symphony of board, hammer,
nail, jack was foreman once more molding from m-
emory a true HOME for the next generation, the
next lonely lovers to live in peace & comfort c-
oming together in a room of brady bunch sinceri-
ty, making the world a tv land once more.

telephone 3

pick up some milk & OJ
keep the mobile device & its antenna
pop tarts, waffles, & cranberry juice
2.5 centimeters (1 inch) from your body

do you need anything else?
nearly every electronic device is subject to
no, i just wanted to know
Radio Frequency (RF) energy interference from external sources
where you were & when
if inadequately shielded, designed, or otherwise
will you be coming home?
configured for RF energy compatibility

in a little while, I have to go to
the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) limit for
the gas station & get fuel for the
mobile phones used by the public
lawnmower & then I will be on my way
is 1.6 Watts/Kg averaged over one gram of tissue

irresponsible intern
"the power went off at
my house," she said.
"my alarm turned off."
liar.
she hit sleep too
many times, and suddenly
it was an hour later, as
she dreamed about the
boyfriend she hasn't been
talking to for the
past four days.
she gained an hour of
sleep, but is tired already.