lucky the household could perform our labor from within itself
sink, office, closet, grid, given the underlying conditions shared by one of us
sometimes with friends called by its diagnostic acronym or more bitterly

the full mid-century name, Humphrey Bogart or John Houston
on the set of his last film. mostly we just said conditions or my household
runs a higher risk sometimes we placed the organ’s name before conditions

like an adjective our household shared the sense we could see now
in front of us like our own hands crossed at the wrist to depict
mental confusion but opening outwards at the shoulder, pushing away

limitations: the conditions were personal, we took them that way
a personal failing, like growing old or lack of balance when standing on one foot
needing to eat food consuming too much or not enough liquids

the ones we were made of

dripping from the holes of our feelings box

*

our household looked onto the street through two windows
while pumping craniosacral fluid through our spines
and sending old energy down into the earth

blue van household sometimes passed by
sometimes stopping out front and sleeping
sometimes going around the corner for provisions

we knew not much of blue van household
save the mystery of the cherries
in a plastic bag

*

these feelings we shared for a small medium glass bowl
for salad dressing for batters for strawberries in a bowl

dear small medium glass bowl full of ice in front of a fan

or on the counter warming avocados not yet ripe

delivered yesterday by a company that sloughs off the top of the chain
sometimes crumpling things along the way
sometimes sending something rotten

*

by day we discussed tomatoes with a dear household, and mayo
at night we sent messages around to all the households, and requested advice

from other households, all the dear households

*

one escaped the golden cage of itself
its need and fight, its insufficient wages
and went downtown

ACAB in jeweled green

another berated itself for mixing the baking soda in wrong
as it prepared the neutralizing solution
and went downtown

velour of night

in the early morning one household stood in line in front of another
and so on like that around the block

oh those piggies

oh, the market

*

the age of difficulty procuring eggs and yeast
difficulty procuring flour passed by

and so I did too into age in seclusion 
bamboo overhead

bewildering luxury of its materials
fallen on a wooden pallet

swept and covered with blankets      
a mat a strap two blocks and a bolster

the orange tree sprayed down with neem
helicopters circling our municipal holes         

pavement chunking itself to pieces
the eggs arrived like that

broken over citrus                             

cheerful yellow flowers                      

on all our thrifted platters

*

clustered in hives in honeycomb
we ate from the healing plant

planted in front of the house
long before our household

every third day and on easter
they revealed a living stick

*

quick, to the memory station
a poem of lines

the way it was in January
crammed in rooms
drinking together from stolen ceramics

sweeter, the line outside Everett and Jones
v the tax preparation office on Foothill Blvd

outside the market one man questions the age and disability status of another

the list avoids what a line is
how we queue up
how the line mutters to itself

moving through the building in the morning
about to get into it
I list them in my mind I fight them

mostly men without masks on the sidewalk
sometimes my mother
worn just beneath the nose

the infected worked a morning shift:
the infected workers from the morning shift

*

a household divided among itself
its labor and square footage

can’t stand thinking of itself that way
always leaving and returning as agreed upon

but sometimes you can’t
stuff impinges on households

*

the basic unit of composition inconsistent unto itself
some households headed upstate
some working the register

second incomes until they dissipate
if you lived in the city that’s the way it was
if you lived in the marine layer

clouds did or did not roll back out
households who could leave did
and who didn’t could not or wouldn’t

until death do us part
target and walmart

*

sorry, I was talking to the microwave

the feelings we discovered for a small saucepan
a narrow turquoise spatula with a notch at the end

things we thought and did at night
things we saw happen

that tiger show

Anne Lister thrown down on her way home
and all that remained of the father, a belt buckle
in the pig’s pen

helter skelter

*

age of sourdough starter and cars driven into the crowd
of condos sitting empty

age of soap nuts and washing onions at the sink
of tendinitis and closures

age of the partial furlough and rotating furlough
of pods and bubbles

age of tyrants and the rustic galette
of PPP and PPE

age of paycuts and reductions in hours
age of RVs 

*

when someone’s left the house, they’ve left the house

when someone’s not in the house, they’re not in the house

when someone closes the door, the door is closed

*

waiting for the healing plant to bloom once in the fall
tufts appear like puberty mostly it stands there and grows

a foot each year, planted where it is said to protect
the relationship between parents and children

we took turns putting the household to bed and waking it up
to perform our labors from within itself, so the healing plant was

how can I say this, a good dad

*

on the one hand
so much depends on a blue spatula

scrambling the eggs
pushing liquids between their stations

on the other, actual explosions
or
you remember the children that you did not get

art, too….
we would have to remake it
me & her

me & this blue spatula
I would have to relearn everything

how to teach her, the little girl I didn’t give birth to or foster
or even aunt or uncle properly as only an uncle lady with a blue spatula can

stirring the batter of some cookies made together
the night after she runs away

no, it’s not a thing she’ll use
she won’t need this blue plastic thing

CAPITAL WON’T HELP YOU IN THE WORLD THAT’S COMING
I heard scrawled above the photograph of a dusty road on the conglomerate’s shopping station

what’s more congealed than a congealed piece of blue plastic?
but… maybe she is swatting flies with it
maybe honey gathers and spreads

or she’s swatting the ass cheek of a dear friend
with this blue plastic spatula
and laughing

*

I haven’t read Doors of Perception

I am not going to waste your time on Trip by Tao Lin
A Really Good Day by Ayelet Waldman or Michael Pollan’s fantasies
about the guide’s breasts sprouting feathers or whatever
I am not even going to fact check that

I will tell you though about Simone Forti
and Meryl Streep in Adaptation, near the end

but The Orchid Thief, the whole mess of that book

I carry around those assholes too
who fucked things up for Maria Sabina

I will tell you though about Soma Phoenix
and Tam Integration

how my love went down, into the park

*

our household in the morning
thumping the chest to clear out sadness
clearing lines of tension

ok
ok

ok