Taxonomy

Originally published in Toho Journal, Volume 1, Issue 2

Taxonomy

The machine you made speaks with a diamond cutter
and a city of paper, even though all it does
is count backward and tell the brother
where the bird is.

There is no dirt. You just like the letter D.
Who would think worse of you
for something like that?
What you call rain is really
a kind of roofing material
and what you call transcendence is really
the dreamless sleep of household objects.

Imagine for a moment I am the last man
on earth. You see what happened? You see
how your illness works? You keep changing me
back to teeth.

Like a specter, Philly haunts my early art,
blackmails me for the affairs
with my past selves. But back to you.
My advice: sleep at the edge of a body of water
with paper airplanes covering your genitals.
This will diminish the effects.

You wouldn’t even come close to guessing
the things I’ve done in front of the mirror. 
I tried on three different plagues and none
of them did a thing for my pectorals.
I wore my past self inside out, but couldn’t
figure out the zippers to take it off again.

You may feel as if the world is closing in on you,
but this has happened before. Next to you
is a machine made from a diamond cutter
and the paper city. You will know what to do.