sneeze blood
all spring
& stomp on
red flowers
their tiny weak
kingdoms
outside the deli
where a man was fatally shot yesterday
I was there ten minutes earlier
buying beer
for myself
with quarters M. saved
now a sheet of computer
paper with his overstretched
and pixilated smile is nailed to the wall
when I die and there’s no
space left please don’t sign
my teeth we miss you
JAMES
I love the way the female
J train voice
says “Canal Street”
surprised
hurt as if canal
was an old friend
or lover or maybe
a sister
showing up
with her
favorite meal
a number two
two double
cheeseburgers no
pickles
you left
she says
we all left
___
Sunday morning
in Philadelphia
I‘m sitting in
Checkers
watching Mission Impossible
on a cracked tv
and crying when
I see
three sisters walking
to church
in the rain
yellow dresses
and black deli bags over
what I imagine
is curled hair
___
you think I have nothing
left in New York
today I saw my
best friend Alex
for the first time
in a year
her fingers have strange symbols
tattooed on them
she said they represent
a second farewell
cool I told her
confused
holding her
and her fingers
when I thought
of James
who at age 15 stabbed a
kid at the boardwalk
who once smashed a vending
machine at the rec center
we ate a dozen Snickers
a block away
as the cops searched
for us
who stole me my first
12 pack
which I drank warm because
I was afraid
to use my parent’s
fridge who last night
walked out back of
a house party
back home and hanged
himself from a tree
I am not going to sit
here
and lie about how or
why
or what kind
of tree
James I am not
going to sit here
CHEAP GETAWAYS
set my phone alarm
to creek sounds
& dream up
an average lake
*
my coworker
has bird issues
she poisons seed
an ex’s monosyllabic name
lends itself to constant song
*
summer work in the city
is a brutal mess
a green cab overheats
vines conceal building numbers
so the mailmen strike
*
rent
then flowers
red sorry things
for our
table
*
I eat cherries
under scaffolding
I flick the pits east
its a ritual
for cash
*
4 mattresses
we stacked drunk
we fall off laughing
nuisance stream
freezing & refreshing
*
why rise up from dirt
I return to it
the underpaid
blast me off
the courthouse
*
I call parsnips
partisans
pour my wine down
the sink
my thumb
makes a song
in the night
earth on glass
Kurt Havens lives in Queens, New York. He grew up in central New Jersey.