PORTRAIT OF MY STALKER

When my stalker stopped stalking me
I died the death of
a million fat blue genies.
That’s how sick in the bream I was.

I wanted to call him Porgy—
because he could follow the scent
of my truffle—
before I knew a porgy is a fish.

The lava lamps slid all the way
into the psychedelic canal.
Fiddlehead ferns wove a shag rug
that couldn’t fly.

I wept hard
in the terminal.
I couldn’t weep.
My god wings
looped in the gold
from a dying head.

For seven years, I didn’t
hear anything
from the state.
And then my certificate
thighs returned
burned.

I tried to soldier on
without. I vacuumed
in the powder
all the way up the snow scraper
and sucked my hair
into a trapezoid.

Running of the things
off a cliff–
Running of my nerves
off my spine–

Porgy, I begged,

I’m a dwarf
planet, I’m a morphed
laminate.
I’m a shut canister
in shut cycle,
spinning out of time.