#AllMen

the time it takes to

get ready the morning, the blank

stares and climb to the back

of the work camp

bus—what length beard and

the price of peaches

all men and diapers

all men and taxes

on the movie industry

on this day he lets his lover

sleep in and checks the charts

for any let up, any hint

as to where his grandfather went

all men disappear into html

and terms of reference replace

what his outline left

a bar stool and a quick look

to access the field—poetry

and the addressee of all men

hail all men hail

amen to the rink and pitch

filled with rules to keep the small packets

of history hitched to our belts

all men carry the load, the tablet

scored with commands, the backpack

to the outback to feed the burn; all men

play the trumpet to ward off her morning light

on the examining table, the patient does not

meet the doctor’s gaze—a hand placed there

and there and he mumbles something about his

bowel movements and the doctor leans over

to take some notes, her awareness of his

discomfort adding to the slant of her script

all men deserve better, all men deserve less

control, all men serve the other men and their

hate is spilled into the reservoir 

all men are a hypoxic feedback loop

with shells pock-marked by action

films and bleached by the internet

all men believe the anchormen on the news,

all men believe in all men

a certain efficacy that all men share

when ordering food at a restaurant

all men know how to limp their wrists

all men own the pronoun’s pronoun

all men reserve the right

tense moments over the wording of the affidavit—

this monument to the precedent, to the legal jurisprudence,

to the gavel’s symbolic weight, to all the men who line the walls

not all the time was spent in dispute—the rest was

taken to fortify and change the locks

all men spill open like a cracked egg