5 Poems by Michael Glaviano

The brazenest stowaways just bared their breasts
tied themselves to prows and stayed still for months.You can’t name your dog Spirit
of Everything. But you can take Dirt Cityin the palm of your hand and shout a prayer
more mandate than prayer. What’s the differencebetween a long stretch of desert highway
and a baby? The sun doesn’t set over a baby.

I am permanently serious. I believe people
are far too young for one another.

Night comes in like body hair
we shave all night.If I can thicken your body
by churning it, salt it,then smear it over my walls
then smear it over my walls.If sleep enters the room
through the closet door, it enters after knocking.

If you fall asleep touching my stomach
do I become touching your hand with my stomach?

Or does all the touching just go into your hand.
You can have a good day

or you can have its bristling light.
What’s wrong with this picture

is it’s a picture.

Third is ordinal number number three
because thirst was already taken.I’m not alone in this playground
but I’m alone in this endeavorof sucking piss from the sand.
A grade and a base and a periodand a place in a contest. Children
play rhyming games there’s no victory in.

Owed is to owe participial
because own was owned.

Second hand in the hot south.
Last mouth in the hot sand.

I once got detention for punching a boy
in the first with my first.

If I could wind back the game
into the ball, I would. If I could turn backI would. Turn: 1. a reorientation
of face. 2. a when when onemust or mustn’t make a move. What can be covered
from below? The jumper. The juniper. The sunlike a mountain, like a frail lake of night sweat.
In a fully animal upbringing, feral haircut, feral bone roll

one is always less alone than one suspects
one is meant to be. Bizarrely, permanently,

beyond northern lights, northern darkness,
& between moon and earth

I’ll take moon. Between now and then
a backfield in motion.