A house, infested
On the water, in florida, on a river maybe
Giant spiders made of flesh
Room to room chasing them and being chased
I had a gun
My companion was an older man, mustache
He was helping me kill them
I was directing him
He was calm, slightly bumbling
We go out, following one of the beasts
He leads us out into grass
He is being too hasty
We’re out behind the house now,
I tell him that means the spiders could be anywhere:
On a tree, leap from the roof
We can’t be so hasty
Suddenly there’s one
I had never seen a spider out in the grass before
We go back, regroup, try again
Circle around near the patio
People open fire on us from the sliding door
Richy & the rest of my family shooting at me
I shoot back
My dad is coming now, with a hat on
Approaching calmly
We run back the way we came
Lock doors behind us
I plug in my gun, sit on the couch and wait

Hammering at the sea
with fists of water
from underwater,
water against water,
dull, diffuse, thudding blows,
ages for each fist to complete the arc.

The kelped ocean shadowed, somnolent,
unmoved, heavier than everything:
than my fists of water,
from underwater;
than my body,
my soul,

than my thinning, foolish blood.

“Knock it down,” the man beside me says, “clean it up.”

A building is being demolished outside, there are strange sounds, the steel beams are squealing in shocked animal protest, people walking dogs pause and gawk, bikers brake and linger.

Stand long enough and little white particles will accrete to your hair and clothes and to the alveoli of your lungs, blown by the wind from the wrecking place. Yet we stand, and watch. And some thrill.

We were born with a hunger for violence –- atavistic, slumbering, forgotten, euphemized, dressed up in the clothes of progress and civilization, but never erased, never unyoked to our spirits.

And if we can no longer slake it, from atrophy of will or muscle, we build things to do it for us –- or sate ourselves by proxy of army and mob.

I’m on a plane and I’ve forgotten to bring the other half of my bedframe.

Onboard I stash the battered longbox containing the bed’s aluminum rods and wonder when we’re going to take off.

I fall asleep by the window, the sun shining on my face and arm, I wake up stabbed with the realization that I’ve developed cancer while I’ve been asleep. I now have a thick and pus-encrusted rash all over my neck and chest, and in the bathroom I see that my neck has sprouted a boil as firm and round as a puffball mushroom, I pinch it with my long nails and watch a bead of blood well up from the puncture, I look inside the cavity and see the blood writhe as I tremble, the boil full like a teacup.

I lean over the sink and look down in the drain while I feel the fleshcup empty, the blood pouring thick and dark, the sensation’s ticklish, when I look up in the mirror, the left side of my mouth has twisted permanently somehow from the ruin on my neck, some subcutaneous implosion like a sinkhole, some underground collapse, I close my eyes, when I open them my neck sparkles like a rare treasure with its sugary crust of crystalline pus.

I smile. I doesn’t look so bad, after all. In a certain light — if I turn my head a certain way — just so — I give myself a wink and walk back to my seat.