APPETITE

for Greg Kosmicki


Resurrected, resuscitated zombie Elvis Presley
karate-chops through Graceland’s solid-core doors,

insane for car keys, then brains, then sandwiches,
but cannot drive fast enough to bask in each gleam

of vanishing sunlight, purple and black and pink
as lingerie each number of miles, so unbolts the Lisa Marie,

anchored in asphalt, hot-wires, siphons jet fuel,
and flies, humming the early tunes, acoustic,

from the 1968 comeback special, thinned down
and joking with all the back-up singers,

The Blossoms this time,
not The Jordanaires.



EACH DAY

for Steve Schroeder


When my soul escapes from my body, I chase it, looking foolish
as a man running after his hat with no head on his torso, or
a small boy at the carnival pursuing released balloons when his arms
sheared off in the tilt-a-whirl’s gears, blood festooning all over.

A headline rises from its story, floats like skyline fractions of something
above horizon, no matter the continent or people afflicted.
Classifieds advertise all manner of bargains.
Wedding dress, unworn. Child’s crib, never used.

But I catch my soul, in fingertips, each hand, like a leaf shivering
down in wind, tip-toe on window ledge so many stories up
birds dizzy. No helping any thread or grain of wood.
Sorry, friends. It flutters. Shining. Symbolic.