Yesterday you went to the desert

I put on Brahms channel

and washed the tub

my fur stood up

seeing your picture

in my feed

pool boys change your towels

another violent news cycle

you’re partying with a friend

it’s very maybe she’s born with it

 

*

 

Jennifer they’d have named me

time I can’t get back

The Anthropocene is a fucked up time to be alive

yet mint grows

a chemical peel

a party in bungalow five

you’re back one month

I need to chill

with you in the desert

days of war

nights of love

the more things change

things more the

 

*

 

a collage of consciousness

pleasures of an empty mind

wet hair in the basement

S&M waterboarding training

Trisha told us about

Restylane, Juvéderm, Dysport

emerald, blood, ash

with this Apple appliance

I can be a better ally

 

*

 

I felt embarrassed walking the city

Like someone in a fiction

I’d sent a photo

of the strawberries

I’d had for breakfast

leftover from a work thing

saw your face

on a billboard

I will probably jump from

Let’s watch Mondo Cane

 

*

 

A bigger splash

god is this actual pool

gloved hands pitter ashes

into the pool

witness the people

fuck you’re on molly again

grace to live, to see

“Gymnopédie 4” on a grave

that aching deal we’d made

of ourselves

 

*

 

views between the legs of dancers

my mind is a haunted house

flesh I can’t touch

I can’t save your life meditating

on a tattoo that says brut

the neighbors are banging

to Rihanna, Kiss it Better

it’s a perfect song, all slow

it’s strength growing

how I wish

 

 

 

***

Ben Fama is the author of Fantasy (UDP 2015). His writing has appeared in The Believer, Denver Quarterly, Boston Review, Jubilat, Lit, Joyland and The Brooklyn Rail, among others. In 2016 he was a participating artist in MoMA ps1’s GreaterNY. He is the co-founder of Wonder, and lives in New York City.