A Poem in which I Try to Express My Glee at the Music My Friend Has Given Me

—for Patrick Rosal Because I must not get up to throw down in a café in the Midwest, I hold something like a clownfaced herd of bareback and winged elephants stomping in my chest, I hold a thousand kites in a field loosed from their tethers at once, I feel my skeleton losing track somewhat of the science I’ve made of tamp, feel it rising up shriek and groove, rising up a river guzzling a monsoon, not to mention the butterflies of the loins, the hummingbirds of the loins, the thousand dromedaries of the loins, oh body of sunburst, body of larkspur and honeysuckle and honeysuccor bloom, body of treetop holler, oh lightspeed body of gasp and systole, the mandible’s ramble, the clavicle swoon, the spine’s trillion teeth oh, drift of hip oh, trill of ribs, oh synaptic clamor and juggernaut swell oh gutracket blastoff and sugartongue syntax oh throb and pulse and rivulet swing and glottal thing and kick-start heart and heel-toe heart ooh ooh ooh a bullfight where the bull might take flight and win!