Enjoy Being Human

Walking the tracks at sunset's like saying I love you—

Only see the bats 'cause they're so damned awkward.
Look at that blue. All of them. What do you call sundown's
shading. Sky's not perfect or nothing. Not what I mean, but
sundown sky calls them bats out of wherever they been and
then it's like sundown says look at this clunky-ass thing
flopping like a night butterfly thinks early stars are flowers.

Not taking nothing from butterflies, but nobody's saying
how pretty they fly. It's like they're like kites that can't kite
'cause the me holding the string don't know shit about wind
or maybe I never learned I ain't got to run the whole time—

ain't the point. Sometimes you don't got to run at all.
Some days the hill's the hand, kite's the dandelion flyer and

you just got to make a wish 'bout something nothing to do with kites
and you just got to hold on to that wish and not move. Just marvel.

Swallow

Ain't no looking death in the face.
Head can't turn a circle. Shouldn't it
be enough just knowing what's coming can't
be known? 'Til death. 'Til death. 'Til
death I do. I do. But that "do us part"
bit don't take stock of what comes
and what comes then, when death's circle's
another hoop like any other, 'cept the Hula. 
Hell of a dance. God's gift. Its own
gravity. Its own Eros. That sneaky devil's
kiss I'd double fist for more of. That fire-
swallow-burn. Watching you dance over
there cross them coals makes it look like
you got a flint between your hips. Where
there's smoke there's fire, I heard, and
I got a bird's nest 'tween my ribs.
All straw and twigs. All dry and droughted.
The kind of thirst'll spark a quench.

Fisticuffs

Nights I slip down to The Floorboard and watch Micna fight
don't mean I'm trying to beat him. When I slip through the ropes
everybody in here thinks it's 'bout laying him out or least
coming way with judge's marks meaning bragging rights.

But a ref holding my hand up like its own trophy's not
saying I got him licked for good or I can walk away or its over
'cause a man ain't ever done facing himself 'til he don't see himself.
This town's full of cuts. Each dressing room. One on the vanity

cross from the bed. Windows at night. Microwave in the morning.
Three just backing out the driveway and then every storefront and
bar and bathroom and all this without talking 'bout who I got to see
just trying to get from each point a to b. I slip through the ring's ropes

and there's nothing to think 'cept me trying to see Micna and not me. Maybe
that's a lie though. Ring ain't a ring. It's a square and I'm a round hole.