Shelter in Place

Putting the pox

in apocalypse

the pudding in the skull

has a lemony taste

just a little

until you push through

to the richer

almost bitter

sweetness at the center

Yum is a corporate brand

encompassing multiple

fast-food franchise chains

he marched his co-workers

out of the restaurant

& into the woods

where he shot them

The angel of death

ambles in

from the memory gardens

It merely needs

to brush against

the hem of your gown

Goya’s peasants

against the wall

don’t look away

When help burst in

all armored up

they found a naked woman

alone in the shower

but couldn’t make out

her mumbled song

When this you see

D E F

geometry rising

to the surface

of a hypothetical world

in a 13-dimensional space

circulating an absence

where some sun should be

What time is it

in Zaragoza

by the old Roman wall

Modernism lurks

looking as dated

as the gravel garden

at the Soviet block apartments

She waits at the corner

for the bus to the campus

when the mayor’s son

pulls up in his car

to offer her a ride

from which she is never seen again

The first to commit suicide

is the class valedictorian

They rain from the bridge

like a festival of ornaments

like the couple holding hands

out of the south tower

No one remembers Ishi

in the Berkeley hills

or LoneCat Fuller’s

musical contraption

Holy Hubert shouting

from a text in which

all of the words

have been erased