Spare Cupholder

by Michael Cooper

She absorbs the tea thru holes in her palms—a skeleton
key wrapped in a blanket
you wrestle with newspaper
paper cuts and runny ink
tattoos gathered downtown spilling
   you—a fade away jump shot
   into a beer pong cup—my head

grins from her wicker linen basket. I’ve come to tell
you about leaves
in the gutter where you found two eye
teeth as the curtains push the blue
   night open—the car door swings she
   falls out   smelling of a different

hymn.  Burned by your cigarettes.  The abandoned
hubcap holds summer
in its upturned rim—I drink what
the police
offered: dot 3 brake fluid from this red cup
   made of plastic—I sit—cuffed on a curb
   outside my own house.

I had this argument oncewith my imaginary

by Michael Cooper

girlfriend        maybe that’s why she is always trying to kill me.  We solved
it, 3 young men dove into
an ocean raced 211 yards
to the bouy- I lost.  Later, drencht in her
car designated driver in wet clothes with sand
in my crotch the blue woman told me that I
won because I was the first one in
the water, the brave one;  then she married
the drunk-he cheated
on her repeatedly there is no no
cheating there is only 1 man
and 1 woman at all times uni
verse the ocean lulls me in her 1011 arms
or maybe just seven.  Here is the transcript of
yelling:bebraveboldshimmeringhuman).