Tagged: poem

Elgin, TX

rain looks likely
which out here
makes us scurry to
burn things
that are piling up

the weed thing
the food thing
the sleep thing
the dreams

stuck together like
broken furniture
intertwined
clinging to each other

I get home and you’re
bored, so I’m scared
you’re the best thing
I’ve got going

I’m throwing
these things in
I see the neighbor’s fire
hit the tree

sparks threaten
to crawl like ants
towards our house
towards me and

all this wood
towards you and
wherever you are
in there

but the rain comes
as expected
it allows the fire to
process without

consuming itself
or so it assumes
as the fire assumes
it can quit when it wants

so more and more
is just thrown in
like us
a getting-through-shit

machine
a knot through which
the accelerant
is love

Creation Story 2

I was meant to give myself
entirely to something
by now

but each time I say it
my face seems smaller
my beard like ivy on a wall

I am both good and
bad things pretended
but in nature

I am exonerated
I have a cat’s
imagination

under the table
this is how I forgive myself
to build without

touching the mountain
to set up all the little
people

I was meant to give myself
entirely to something
by now… can it be you?

you put a blanket
on the window, close off
all rooms to this room

your jar lids pop
in adjacent counties
ice crumbles into the sky

our breath remains obvious
counted
we lower our portions

beyond the curtain
is a frozen planet inside
a warm vent

another chance to make a life
to remake life in our image
a ball of heat

the twelve minute race
however long
we must hold this embrace

Ophelia

always interrupt me for
animals or ghosts

food-related reasons
bathroom

a sound you
hear the car making

my exit
a song on the radio in

need of lifting
or a heavy thing

land upon
my head

wake me up with tears
if I am cold

slipped like petals
on the sheets

like grief
drawn by a fly

or a bird
hiding its hurt

stop me at the edge
if I get too close

hold my body in
point me towards

the beginning
and set me down

Mink Teddy Bear

to exist beyond
the worst
having happened

is not the end
of fear
but a full lap

the kids will
often
bring me things

one brings a mermaid
I take its
temperature

one brings
a transformer
it lights up

another brings
a bear that is so soft
it feels alive

maybe it is alive
we’ll keep
its secret

it hides
in the child’s
arms

slips
behind
her voice

around the breath
beneath
the door

mutating
undulate along
the air

like a virus –
evading its end
by

pretending
it’s
not real

When You Travel by Balloon

I worry you will learn something
that takes you away
a balloon you forget
to let go of
or choose not to

I will grab a balloon
and follow, though
in the sky
I have even less
direction

no bones to block it
no blood
maybe they will put
all the reds together
maybe it has to do with the air

it is exhausting trying to plan
my plans, I fear, are me
choice animating thought
a quarter machine
who grabbed me? do I have control

over where I am? is
control like a thought
should I let it go? is it the same?
I swim through the air in
my best clothing

careful to match the color of cloud
but it’s different when you’re in it
it’s obvious
it ruins it

don’t go
don’t look at me
don’t go

Domain

if you put a carcass
on the roof, the rats
will get it before
the birds

I do my coughing
on the roof
you do your
proving

you impress the doctor
with a bouquet
I ask stupid questions
that I hope

sound like love
then we go get ice cream
you choose something brilliant
I get chocolate

people celebrate
having finished the maze
never mind
getting out

then drive up and down
the one road
negative
in string lights

revving their lack
of ideas
like the start of a new
world until boom

it appears, and
we’re here, this tiny beach
with not enough space to
space out

as we float on bars
sit on each other
sink the land
into the sea

Worm-Like

once I let the machines
repair my body
they power washed my stomach
drilled relief
into my tail
one guy spent the entire time
in my jaw, just scraping
they must have missed some
anxiety, I guess – what I
described to my parents as
a knife above my chest
not stabbing, just hovering there
I’ve got it down to my tummy
I’m trying to push it out
I’ve ejected my appendix
anxiety – what I describe now
as a strange fungus
aboard a ship
oh to cut it loose
watch it drift into the cold
never to return
never to wonder if you love me
to devalue your love so
never to make things wrong
because it’s easier
because I know these things by
prescription, or strand
because I blame them
or make them disappear to
appear changed
it’s still here
it’s in the room with us now
one day I will loose my hair
my eyesight
my home planet
one day there will be a voice
the one who keeps anxiety
at all costs
from reaching my hands
the poles
dowels in every pore
make the rope you make
around my wrists
nothing can escape when we go

to my Brother’s Spirit

at first, my courage
was naive
it couldn’t have imagined
so it led with that

now my courage
feels old
no longer looking
no longing for something to happen

like Mom said – I knew
there was something
more interesting about us
and I felt it

now I couldn’t care less
I want to live
as long as we can
in case we were wrong

Playing Dead

for a possum to play dead effectively
it can’t look too good
evolutionary priority is given
to the ugly – the mottled fur
the hairless face like carrion
the chitinous tail, the smell

if a possum chooses another
she will do so for its longevity
its eligibility based on ugliness
therefore beauty
the young are carried on the stomach

tight against fat hanging
towards the ground, dragging
through ticks and the litter
disgusting, undesirable
reliable

no one comes for the possum
not the hungry, nor the thirsty
the possum does not pretend
to be alive – it is therefore safe
it is ready to drop dead
at any moment

a long, upturned smile
the secret – to live
while no one is looking

Nebulizer

my breath comes running up, alarmed
holding bags

my breath is sinched at the waist
my breath

is afraid to put it all the way in
my breath is unsure of the door

it rolls up a towel to
block the light

it knows footprints by weight
my breath escapes through

the window, and though it lives in me
it looks like a robber

feels like a robber, like
it has something of mine in its pockets

in this way my breath cares about
what others think

other’s thoughts hurt. other’s
thoughts can be controlled

my breath controls them
oxygen – a bundle of stones in the arms

of my breathing, a breathy voice, a
circulatory mind

my breathing is pot without
a drain hole

my breathing is root rot
my breath continues, though I

miss a few here and there
they fly over my head or

over my shoulder. it is a joke, or
salt, my breath, which today

feels like someone else’s. it is not enough
or maybe, too much my own