Jeans/Genes

crickets bury the lawn, a short green ocean

time for tide, time for yawn. small

jaws crunching on corn and wheat, rules 

that bend. generations

that keep us here, at the ice cream parlor: 

for blood. thick ozone dripping down, touch

our noses and tuck us to 

bed. save us of scandal

and senator. save us of colors with

codes we don’t understand. taking children

to church too young--story, story what’s 

the sound of dissonance? what rides 

that synapse, still growing? what begged our lineage 

to stay here? chuncks out of the road

will flip your car. no teacher to watch the fourth grade

class after school means

guns on the
carousel. when the friendly charcoal james got free, he

seared flesh for the midwestern kiki. he told us, 

The Secret is in staying home and

speaking of nothing. 

The Secret lies in the daily

practice of pretending you’re

an expat with a broken radio--gotta leave, make repairs. you 

see, the earth is so flat here, and your

hiking will be so sorrowful, that no matter how far you go,

you can turn around and

always see 

the old home. 

flex your detachment, he says, 

like a morning 

hymn.