Bill Knot makes me smile.

The title of the post and the title of the poem both reflect my California birth.


You Are All My Friends
suite of short poems

I
Smoking cloves is like smoking
Christmas, but for your lungs,
like that bad December
where your parents shake.

II
Several million tricycles
by yellow apartments,
cinderblocks, a town train,
not quite night, the smell slips
of burnt banana pudding.

III
Free cable.

IV
Right after the flood,
a rocking chair on the
power lines, far after
the flood, no town to
speak of, street flakes.

V
MySpace: flea market
of "personalities"
(of small shirts).

VI
Your weight in tobacco smoke
looks out the window. We somehow
wait for candle wax to reassemble.

VII
A boy removing a rubber arrow
from his friend's back, from
his friend back then.

VIII
When the power goes out,
we seal the freezer. When
the power stays out, we
eat all the ice cream.

IX
If your father starts a
LiveJournal, then you
repair the cooler.

X
When your hand;
yes: knows.