Tagged: the Heart
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 thrown in
just 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 it
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
A Request for the End of My Life
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
wake me up with tears
when you are cold
slipped like petals
on the sheets
stop me at the edge
if I get too close
if I move like grief
drawn by a fly
or a bird
hiding its hurt
hold my body in
point me towards the
beginning
and set me down
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
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
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
A Love Letter
it feels like a good time…
candles already lit, so
no presumptuous
candle lighting
some of the hourglass
sand is stuck. I wonder if
this like time, then
throw up my mouth a little
but what place other than
a letter to talk about time?
or sand? or being stuck? plus
I am concerned about my hourglass
it’s meant to be 30 minutes
but with sand stuck to the glass
is it quite? how much
time am I getting?
is it the same sand each time?
or does new time replace it?
it’s hard to tell – I flip it
just to see you buried
the Angel of Forgetfulness
blesses me. The Angel of White
Dimples
rebuilds herself
whole temples in her honor
could this be the time
when all of the sand
falls through? and
Forgetfulness retrieves
her blanket?
will I remember having
said yes to this, this life
and potentially others?
what did I see up there
that meant
enduring a human body
was it your body? It could
have been your body
was it something that needed
to be done?
have I done it?
can I keep doing it? is there any
question but the one I have already
answered yes to…
…is this a good time?
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, doing plumbing
doing queen and king
they do bullhead, water-bearer
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
How to Release Dead Animals
it is hot and windy. your face
is probably covered in hair
your body out
I am reminded of the animals
I’ve kept, some of which have
died in my care – snails
toads, spiders – clearly dead
(some had been melted
in tupperwares in which
I had also caught a star)
now back into the wild
unable to throw them away
unsure of their use now, as they
no longer moved in my room
unsure of where it was
I had found them
running away, around
this whole time, open
mouth against clear
sloped walls
even the rocks I’ve kept, like
tears hidden up my nose
or in my ears
I’ve wanted to keep forever
my ultimate stubbornness
to be an everything-sized cage
to be your whole world
suddenly my mouth is full
I set the dead on the knape
of the Earth, an armadillo
rooting its vast, known circle
flinching, closing
the dead to skitter off one day
the Earth to have rings
the dead to die again and
again, having lived
again I am unsure about
the size of the world
where the color goes
on captive animals
why they feel different
how they could have died
if I can love something
without having to have it
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
separately, in the city
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
of the Whole Foods
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
approachable temperature
a star just being friendly
holding it
lighting their eyes
but stars are forever away
maybe they have already died
7-10
I run more when I’m single. I dig holes in my skin
as if something might pupate & emerge
I would like to be more inwardly motivated
so my heart won’t come out black in a rocky
bed. I’m consumed by how much
it doesn’t hurt. Does that mean it hurts?
