Three Video Poems

Cardinal

As we veer through the leafy branches of a forest, I remember that my mother who is steering the car has been dead for more than a year and I can’t drive, and my father can’t drive and my grandmother — who even though she is dead is alive and in the car with us — can’t drive either. The car keeps going, through patches of bark and black rivers, over sap-filled gaps that smell of pine. Why are you worrying so much, the earth is a mouth that can lick you clean, says the voice of the trees, or is it the voice of my mother leaving my own mouth. When I grab the wheel, I become the red blur of a cardinal, skittering too fast for anyone but God to see. I don’t believe in God or any gods. As I fly past the shadows of my parents, above my parents and through their flickering outlines, I myself am a kind of god and am surprised how small my parents appear skidding through the forest’s mud. I try to remember that my mother is dead, but I am looking down at her and I can see her face twitching. I still see her cherry red cheeks, her eyes.

The Weekender

There is no Q train today
The B train never runs on weekends

The 2 train is suspended or in perpetual
suspense

The 3 train is running on the 2 line
but not the 2 line in New York,
the one mapped out in blue light
drawn in crayon on the topography
of a sleeping face

The M train has been replaced with a shot
by shot reshoot of the 1931 film M,
this time directed by Ron Howard

The J train is telling jokes about jazz

The D train is a metaphor for all dark thoughts
or it’s the last character in a password
an AI created and forgot to share with humanity

The R and N trains are trading places Freaky Friday style
The 5 train is giving the ghost of King Kong a high-five

The 4 train is forsaking the scent of nostalgia
for the aftertaste of futuristic rage

The S train is tracing the lines
on a naked god’s infinity snake tattoo

The 6 train is polishing its six-pack
The E train is lacing ecstasy with exhaust

The C train and the A train are rumored to have eloped
but are actually in a polyamorous relationship
with the Z

The 7 train is hoarding all the luck

The G train is discovering its G spot
The F train says F you
 

Self-Portrait as Cloud

I feel most myself.
when—like today—

all of the sky
is a single

undifferentiated
cloud

when ice particles
break grammar

into something
resembling space