I bet my birth certificate is better
than your birth certificate – that
indescribable green, the forceps,
blood-splattered from 1968. Growing up
I had uncertified friends, boys who
kissed boys, wolves who went unpetted,
no tree left unleapt from. Then
I bought a washer and dryer; my
colossus crumbled, by birdsong
was bedeviled, my cola de-fizzed.
I bet, lick by lick, your windows
scowl with bright memories, too.
Do you, too, feel the pressure
coming from the frames, your
dead saying, We’re waiting for you?
Oh, how I long to be uncertified, too;
but, instead, I zip and clip my wife
barely straying off to pee in the woods,
or to bray like a horny mule.
Funny, though, how comforting
a sheet of stacked boxes can be,
the complications of life contained
neatly inside geometry and certified,
signed, by the well-educated
with horrible handwriting, no hint
of the heatwave or wildfires that
stressed the grapes we sip tonight.

I, in my unkindness, gather rain in your hair.
Rather I’d been a raven fetching riffraff,
rather a Corona cool enough to condensate.
In my tigerhood, I had zebra guts
photoshopped to my whiskers.
Rather I’d’ve undulated my gratitude better,
a gaping maw proclaiming your praise.
Young me should’ve done more scribbling,
should’ve been more than hand in a pocket,
loose change a-jingle.
If I’d’ve been a silver suit of air,
I’d’ve died happy on your lips;
or a banana you bit with a smirk,
mangling the day beyond recognition.