Abraham Smith

why stack this
in a neat little pile
on the floor by the records
that you and only you
know how to sing to
having learned all the skips
as little goings quiet and wet
the dust where this was
if you like i
squeamish memory
squeeze hands first into
hearts then potatoes
escape it by coughing or
any little key caulk jocular song
darling readying the tshirts
they will have a sunset
we will correct people
ruddy sunrise actually
fact that eyebrow ain't
trough for sojourning monarch
means handsome trap
for sweat some jelly teeth
crown o' gliding fang
as we yes yes no from
the latest in a clear stretch
before dark woods
dark lite afterthoughts of
explosion wroth
remnant microphone
cords everywhere
retract retrace
is it we are too animal ever to
butter feather into the room
where crooners stare
rare holes in smoke
and red red lips
button nest
little murders
to the edges of glass

the crows are i am home
as in i go to the rib doctor
in taos tell him pull one
i go to the duck decoy doctor
with that no laugh
or deep breath for at
least six weeks rib north of
minneapolis tell her
whittle me a wind wanderer
i go to the glassblower md
boston by way of fayetteville
tell him blow me a dip vessel
bout the size of the pineal and i
go to the big printer makers
before you homogenize the inks
in them big expense cubes i am as in
an animal under the leaves
am the leaves for all the eye
and the leaves ain't worth
thinking about since milton so
mind if i siphon a bag of
your rawest finest so
so home in crow as in yard chicken
eggs for breakfast
them yokes blood orange
they candle the heart
them kids five things
every morning
lamb duck mama to plastic waa waa lion train

i thank god for the limits to my nose
for the dumbing of the breeze
will the road to the sleeper
seeks it clean
rotten ruby ring was a wire talk
do you wear that
to your mouth for a wound or is there
some current thing the smaller
the tighter the turn of the trapped
so fat with rinse
as to be shiny glad? in their clocking
tell you what
stone bend road
pretty lie of a row this way
that ice needs stoves
you could eat off
the pasture weeds and play
you were captain of the cod
none in the cloud kit stupid
no one poisoned the whey
the storm pork wasn't gypsum
for factory belly scratch scrap
frap pistol pop off all y'all
out of my apple trees
you got the milk from my daisy
you don't need god telling me
i got a sweetheart
in indy and her too

careful i enjoy darkness
most ink favorers do
so something brighter like healthy gums
pink shower curtain
a plastic one
gliding along behind a big boat in the ocean
gonna catch me a thousand underarms
right square in the no get away cheek
for there lie the bibles and
burbles babbles and towering
bubble climb of what mouths did
in the light and in lit dark
but mouths do nothing without hands
and hands are only fish
upon the waters of the mind
and no water hasn't current save
puddles and springless ponds and puddles
are only the past tense of driving rain
and anything past is now when spoken
so i think we have sufficiently
updated puddle ponds are for looking at
the message is relax or
easy to recognize on
country people they stink
dog is optional for knowing that

Abraham Smith hails from Ladysmith, Wisconsin. His third book, Only Jesus Could Icefish in Summer, will appear in 2014 from Action Books. Smith is Instructor of English at University of Alabama.