On the Seventh Day We Rested
On the first day, we scanned and cataloged all of our epic and lyrical poetry, fiction and non-fiction, for those who might follow.
On the second day, we summarized and cataloged all of our scientific knowledge for those who might follow.
On the third day, we recorded and cataloged all of our music, songs, and hymns for those who might follow.
On the fourth day, we notated all of our dance for those who might follow.
On the fifth day, we transcribed all of our comedy for those who might follow.
On the sixth day, we erased the scrolls of our entire history so that no one who followed would ever suspect that we did this to ourselves.
On the seventh day, knowing that it was as if Melpomene had never existed, we rested.
carn(assi)al
I’ve been assured that teeth are made of inorganic tissues. But I swear they are cognizant. Must be made of grey matter. I swear they remember the things that I thought I would forget. It takes exactly two hands /one at meeting of waistband and hips, the other fingers lost where hair feels alive against neck/ for them to exert the amount of pressure that it takes to break the skin along a collarbone. They are sure of the number of times tongue has moved past them like prisoner-escaped to writhe in foreign mouth. They can count to five because they have learned the amount of fingers that have pressed /scream against palm. scream-silent-scream. you’ll wake the neighbors, scream/ against and over them. And even bicuspids are aware of the pitch of that heat-soaked ache of a sound that not even hands /bite-down, bite-down, bite/ could quell the vibrations of. And they are cavity-pained yearning to learn the way your name will taste /heavy-sweet-full/ as it syrup-drip pours, unyielding, repeating.
[new orleans]
certain women forget the ones
who hurt them.
they walk along the shoreline
and spit sea-glass into the foam,
so intent upon displacement.
blue sky. soft jazz.
running barefoot towards
a wraparound porch, calling out
for songbirds. praying
for the lilies to open.
i am deep-kissing in the bayou.
there are years of pain
between my palms,
but i am forgetting. one moment
follows another, and i am
walking home with someone
i met tonight. a stranger.
and i am not afraid.
and i am not turning back.
said one revolutionary to another
Said one revolutionary to another:
"I do not give you words to live by,
but rather words on which to die.
Words with which to hang yourself,
to say on the steps to the guillotine,
to write in the cell where you spend
your last days.
I do not give you words to live by,
but rather words to leave behind, for
all the world, which is already hanging,
which has already lost its head,
which has lived its entire life imprisoned."
[ripple effect]
you were drafting lyrics to slow songs
with all this rain in your throat.
the sky falling in sheets —
& you kissed white plaster, beckoning
for me to come home,
as you studied sorrow from the inside.
the ache within us
thickening & sending vibrations
through time, which is strange
after knowing you as long as i have.
& the rain is still here:
i am watching it & listening
to the music we used to dance to.
so while the seasons change,
& you still do not come home,
i pour your name into the wet smell
of earth after hurricanes;
the absence loosening in my chest
as your voice comes to me
from a distance beyond footfalls.
how can one person be
so full of fear, so far from home?
& with death, our eyes
flit open & shut — you come & go,
hardly staying long enough
to breathe. you are returning to
some light i’ll never know,
with eyes i cannot meet again.
& i come home to this curtain,
a small bundle of sadness on the floor.
i have missed you beyond age —
false flowers, sublime morning air.
