On the red-eye from Seattle, a two year-old
in the seat behind me screeches

his little guts out. Instead of dreaming
of stuffing a wad of duct tape

into his mouth, I envy him, how he lets
his pain hang out. I wish I too could drill

a pipeline into the fields of ache, tap
a howl. How long would I need to sob

before the lady beside me dropped
her fashion rag, dipped a palm

into the puddle of me? How many
squeals before another passenger

joined in? Soon the stewardess hunched
over the drink cart, the pilot gushing

into the controls, the entire plane, an arrow

of grief, quivering through the sky.

The milk will be good until October 7th.
That guy nursing the hangover will be good starting tomorrow.
The little boy will be good from now until Christmas
      and then he will be bad again.
The little girl, lifting the dollhouse over her head and hurling it
      to the ground, will not be good no matter what.
Charlie says it’s all good as he lights a joint the size of a telescope
      and charts his inner constellations.
Sally was doing good until her period started and her legs
      began feeling like giant blood sausages.
Lynda can’t go to college in this country:
      her grades are good, but her paperwork is bad.
She entered America the bad way—you must somersault
      across Ellis Island, not pirouette across La Fronterra.
Lucifer’s Dollhouse would be a good name for a strip club,
      but a bad name for a nunnery.
Once I saw a priest jab a crucifix into his arm and his head tilt back,
      as God’s delicious morphine swirled through his veins.
Nothing ruins a good time quicker than staring at someone
      whose eyeballs are like hourglasses filled with rat poison.
The opposite of good night is good riddance.
The opposite of good-bye is fuck off.
Those boys said that girl had good tits, meaning her breasts
      were very mature and she could go away for the weekend
      and leave them in charge of her body.
Man, that girl looks so good, I want to grab the mosquito,
      that just bit her, out of the air and swallow it,
      like a vitamin filled with her blood.
The young man asks the woman if he is a good fuck.
      Yes, you are a good, little fuck, she says.

Please: be kind to boners. Nothing
ruins an evening quicker than catching
a glimpse of a demoralized boner
sobbing into his foreskin. Remember
the boner is always half full. Most
boners sleep upside down in caves,
ready to flutter into the world
at the drop of a bra strap. Boners
move in packs—rarely will you see one
wandering alone in a train station.
Look closer and you’ll usually find
a second boner bobbing nearby. But
it’s the lone boner, the Oswald boner,
you must watch out for. Whatever
you do, don’t challenge it. Don’t
stare it directly in the eye.