Adagio
Spinning slow/ gentle tilt
I can't capture the exact weave of the lace// only
that something beautiful was left
by someone's hands//
I think our house spiders are more
gentle than we imagine
in their corner webs//
waiting only for what will come to them// moving
when times grow scarce
in the kitchen.
strange muse
I think, sometimes,
what it would be like
to love everyone our lovers ever have//
once you brushed her curls// now
I smile for you having held them
//it's theoretical, of course//
don't we all fell one another
with our wells of jealousy.
But if we were hand-in-hand entwined
like that// wouldn't
we have the world?
on the hunt for how we might voice grief.
i
i
cut off parts of my own spine//
letting it all loose.
i left them behind && i
fetched them back in dreams//
//slowly// .
piece by burning piece.
&& my lover measured me up by the firelight:
unclean beast tumbling from my collarbones forward//
embers
in every freckle// soot
in every freckle// scars
in every freckle.
how do you learn that.
how do you feel your gentle inside
&& be told you are // in fact// sharded
glass.
how do you touch your own skin
without feeling the great amounts of space the night sky carries above its
massive elbows//
the kind of space you felt most clearly//
as a child.
(take a second & call that sensation back)
The Overcast
There is a line of light running
through the sun. Have you contemplated
the bend in your knees
lately?
We are in the
afterautumn, which has
coyote eyes & a frostbitten crinoline
mouth. The cat
scrambles up wooden fences/
clawclatter & thickened fur
& graylined eyes.
I sink
into plaid
recoup the taste of honey
in the back of my mouth/ in the depths
of tea, unstirred
& you mix & mix
with your tongue
searching
for where the sweet
has gone.
I hold the doorframes/
I can't articulate
why it feels like earthquakes.
Particular Lament
For heaven's door//
resting your head against it// has it
closed another time// how does one
recoup the taste of honey
in these ugly shaded days// I thought
it was
just behind your lips, but you
close them
in the quietest crescendo
we have seen yet// I weep
in many colors// vermillion
has forgotten its particular shade//
a hip curves
in sorrow//everything feels too cold
these days.
Karaoke with the Mystics
What you might not know about psychics is that they go out to bars, and they get drunk.
They get drunk on the fringes of the room, gather words from edges of surrounding conversations, and then: from within them there comes a rattling.
It is the rattling of unspoken messages, notes, premonitions, ideas, and foresight. It is strong, it is fearsome. Kindness, an intent to help save mankind, smears its mascara into something a touch more desperate and ventures out with an intent voice that speaks with an aim for the souls of strangers.
(This trait of rattling turns many a psychic into recluses, but even those must venture out from time to time)
If you get too close, their shoulders may begin to tremble, like a box with something(vastly alive and curious)waiting within. If you strike up conversation, you have invited an eye from the universe to come look you up and down.
Personally, I enjoy these encounters.
Or I think I do.
The woman is seventy-nine years old, roaring into her eightieth. Her wrinkles make her youthful like a child, as do her dancing hands, as do her missing teeth. She has short hair that hugs her face and curls like a smile.
She takes the role of demanding stranger--what do you do, where do you live, where are you from, when were you born? The shapelessness beneath her lips is set & strong. She says she is Jesus' daughter. She says she saw him at the crucifixion. She asks us what our astrological signs are.
And then she says, "What are you here for?"
And I don't know, or I don't want to say, or the alcohol hasn't kicked in enough. And here is her calling for the night.
She tells me.
Then she staggers off into the cigarette-streaked night air. She pulls a beer bottle from her purse and fills her empty glass with it.
I sit with my new knowledge while the karaoke hosts, who have bowed knees and hunched backs and sterling silver hair, sing Johnny & June together.
The not-so-secret rattling is, I've been a stranger my whole life. People who are drunk in large groups see this fact best.
It was a cathedral// then//
it was a ruin
all the angels & their cracked wings//
you ever seen girl lose
columns of her spine?
I'm here,
dust-knuckled, scraped, slow-bleeding/
curled like a bird in final rest/ bleeding
the kind of red-black that means
eventually it'll stop.
Can't remember
when the passion used to call itself crimson
except under a shade of lace
& afternoon yellowing.
But in the morning the clock strikes
& the day ribbon-grommets herself into
the picture
& we must rise,
her & I,
always ever her & I.
Lonely cathedral,
lost your righteous hips
still warring with
ghosts of an old devil's teeth:
that's as ugly as it ever gets.
& the dust settles,
& the dust settles,
your knuckles are so pink.