

helveticaevery day is garbage day somewhere, and the birds on my street line the pavement like soldiers as friday's tank creeps down the boulevard, crumbs of newspaper billowing from its war-torn mouth.helvetica
the crows flutter sultry in the morning sun toward headlines trailing the street like roadkill, cramming bold-print helvetica into their beaks as the ink stains the asphalt.


the veteranI saw a soldier today, on the corner of 70 and west olive, standing at attention with a blank face and a cardboard sign under the thick clouds.the veteran
locked in place between the sky and sidewalk, he clutches the neck of an umbrella to his chest like a rifle, a halo of black fabric billowing over his head, panhandling the rain as cars splash by unblinkingly.


of birds and raindocument 1.of birds and rain
may 17th.
"if this is how it starts how hard is the rest going to be?"
may 18th passes. so does june 22nd. in the time between and after, I am left only with my birds and the rain
and it rains all the time.
august 7th. I can no longer hear the geiger-counter clicking of the gutters over the echoes of crows and car horns, though the mud that devours my shoelaces each morning tells me the storm still hits while I'm asleep.
november 24th and even the pigeo


642019"I wrote something today," I told the caterpillars on my desk for the six hundred forty-two thousand nine- teenth time, clutching words in my fist like a loose-leaf cocoon, wings beating hard at my fingertips like they want to fly, so I peeled the paper back and watched a brown moth twitch and die in my hands and god damn it, crumpled it up and tossed it with the rest of the failed butterflies.642019


Dave's Poemit was summer and i watchedDave's Poem
my friend fly in five-second intervals, blonde hair having
delayed reactions. i wore a shirt with a groucho marx quote, bought before i
had any breasts to push it forward into the world. her chipped, polished nails
gripped the pogo stick
handle and i was wondering if she could ever go higher than anyone standing, staring from the
pavement, when her brother
crept out from the front
door.
he was born first, but hes the youngest of the four siblings, never quite forming complete senten


A ReunionGlasses clink and wine spills Splashing over every conscious fiber Of our meaningless, benign prattling None caring who crosses the line An embrace of family around me That nestles itself into each crook Of my haphazard life, missing A piece of something bigger I didnt fathom until, so fully drunk On our reunion of playing cards And aiming jokes at open wounds The wine let us laugh, it emptied us Of barriers and intricate websA Reunion
The pastel edges of the flower garden Lent the long stems of roses
A closer vantage to our shoulders Where ev


Swish-CthunkToday I went down to the Bureau of Words to trade in my autumn onomatopoeia. Usually I put it off until at least the end of November, but this year the squelch-thud of my boots in the mounds of soggy leaves brought me up sharp. I went home, gathered my dry snaps, crackles and swooshes, as well as the cheerful spthooshk of a water balloon left over from August and headed down to the department. The rain hurried down to meet my umbrella, an excellent winter sound for which I had no words. But that would soon change.Swish-Cthunk
The stooped man at the front desk greeted me with a finger to his lips. "We're running the barnyard tests, so we've g
feedback is greatly appreciated!
`n
--
i'm a million different people from one day to the next.
--
"And take that screaming imbecile with you."
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