Jeffrey McDaniel (1967 / Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

The sinks dishes are the sinks problem
as I ooh and aah at the complexity of balance
implicit to keep the structure: eight glasses, thirteen
bowls, a valley of forks, intact, while I run
hot water over a knife for my onion.

There's a science to the bathtub's archipelago
of grunge colonies that's necessary to America.
My toothbrush is the pin keeping Detroit from collapse.
No, I can't cut my fingernails and risk
re-ordering the universe's distribution of atoms, mass,
stars popping like light bulbs.

And this new, improved imaginary lover - her whiplash
parabola of tongue snaps sandpaper over spine. Yeah,
in thirteen seconds of pure logic I boomerang
to the future and return as a glimpse.