Tagged: the Body
Why Don’t You Say My Name as Much Anymore
my parents would say Terri – I mean your mother
or David – I mean your father
as if I wouldn’t know who they meant. Or like
they were each hiding some Terris or Davids
we weren’t supposed to know about. I never really
suspected, but I would listen sometimes
put a cup to the wall in my closet
that connected to their bathroom
I’d listen to my mother and father spending time
with Terri and David – coordinating spits
in their sinks – starting the shower for the other –
flushing the toilet. sometimes I’d hear the long lighter
snapping its fingers at the candle. sometimes
I’d hear the tub water. they’d say their lover’s name
– serious business in the house that holds
their children. they must have been in on it together
sometimes I’d fall asleep in the closet listening
my nicer pants and things hanging close to my face
curled up against bags with my name
adorned on them, a clear cup along the carpet
Clay Mask
I cover my skin in earth, as if
my skin is not earth
as if little mounds don’t grow from both
both are like space to bugs
or looks
why don’t you respond to me sometimes?
you’ll just sit there, staring, as if
there isn’t a buzzing
you need to cover
as if you won’t fill with ocean
if you stop moving
stop picking at yourself constantly
stop picking yourself
there is fire in your chart, without which
there can be no stone, no earth
yet I am all earth, no fire
I must have come from somewhere
another layer perhaps, deeper than skin
where I generate my own heat
my own light
like a vent that warms the sea
Pesticide 2
ants grow their fungus
in my ears
confuse my eyes with pools
they touch me, expand
get used to me
not moving
I try to see their whole bodies
in a way I’ve never seen
my whole body
but can feel it
I am up top, pressed
against glass
I am standing too close
to the moon
It goes down my body
to the planet
I try to see its whole body
in a way I have never seen
my whole body
but can feel it
Battery Effect
tonight it has been red
then yellow, then luminous white
I think coral, copper, cotton, rattle
at one point it was below the water
before that it had never left
now it’s here, and I know instantly
that I know something, just not what
maybe I feel the moon’s knowing, or I
heard something, the stars
discussing the moon’s politics on the Earth
children in their adult poses
doing mounted police, fixing the sink
kings and queens
with bull’s heads, stomping the water
they don’t play the root, as you have
or me, the stone with a root in it
we are fixed to the hood of the Earth
the sun does a firm bounce off the moon
it goes down a corridor before
coming back, unlocking the next
entrance, and the next, perhaps everything
a baby gate opens, the milky way opens
we are ferried to our rooms in secret
swept in by birds, to be checked on
later, though they know we will be gone
in their wisdom they can see themselves coming
as I have seen myself coming, and you
our mouths open to the same phase
your blood a belt of red, the candles yellow
my reach a luminous white
Thirty
I was standing in line with you
when I passed out, fainted
I guess, and woke up
on the floor
I remember feeling
guilty, like I had overslept
and how different
you looked
appearing over me, like
a god, or its mother
perfect
and impatient
my elbow hurts – I realize
I must have fallen on it
you say I may have fallen forward
if it hadn’t been for you
how lucky – I am grateful
– I am weak – I am
let down gently – I am
long to see
the security footage
in which your reaction
plays out like a silent film
in which
the faces of the embarassed
become everyone, black
and white, at each moment
assigned a time
Orion
If you lay in snow
and I lay in snow
even with the same moon
as headboard, the electricity
wouldn’t travel, the water
too densely packed
I feel that way today
both in our underwear
you walking from Planned Parenthood
to yoga, me having worn
the wrong clothes to work
now bathing in the spillway
we have no gas for water
we named a cat Fuel
each man presents
his best self, the
6-month awoken blood stem
you unlock something in me, he says
it was not there before
you make me want to be a better man
a star falls on the roof
by definition not that great
of a star, but close
men burn their tongues
try to recall
what they were doing before
just to have you say it
have you pull it out
the long steel draw
an approachable temperature
a star just being friendly
holding it
lighting their eyes
but stars are forever away
maybe they have died already
Harvey
the cab drivers
pull into gas stations, enticed
by the light of zeros
such brightness
meaning nothing, all out
I pick oil off the water
I pick oil
there is always some left
at the bottom, or
stripped up the sides
fucked and left stranded
like the coast
its lazy
endless versions
I’m trying, but each time
fucking is like flying – There is
more or you die
there is oil
it makes boats of birds
I flap
What could happen any minute
and the minutes lost
probably off somewhere
the drive up coast
its bolted down furniture
no walls
or else these paper thin ones
tonight I dreamt a jaguar
too hungry to hunt, was drowned
by the heron
lifted away
eaten someplace quiet
on the rocks
down the hallway
until the heron was stretched full
of hair and bone
holding its gut
sloshed to sleep by the moon
her great blue stomach
the sea
The World is a Joke but Still
short term
photographic
memory loss
your face, infrequent
by his hands
because your body
a poem finds
the bathroom
in the dark
a narrow victory
a game won
of its own making
then ignored, another
game created
before the last has ended
imagine
being made to carry
your winnings
would you ever win?
save it
for the end
the big stuffed air
the face-sized
balloon faces
the world is a joke
& still, he
wants to fuck like
it’s serious
the world is a joke still
learning to tell itself
knock knock
himself
at the door
pounding, afraid
being just him
is the secret
a punch line, or
in this case
a name
A Consequence of the Size of the World
we fell in love, and were separated
the problem therein –
it wasn’t hard enough
to see each other again
Its Parallel Existence
Formerly of love appears
on grainy 90s television
She takes down my shorts by the pool
Her mouth is full of ice, if I remember, or
I tried to run
I remember my first kiss. I wiped it away
I remember I peed on a girl’s foot in line
to the diving board. If I saw her today, I’d maintain
it was dripping water, formerly
of ice, that it was unseasonably cold that day
not too cold
Snow untwisted from the curtain
Duck, dinosaur, contagion fused together
We had to get out of the pool
There is no end, it seems, to these
lines that never touch