Tagged: the Heart

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

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
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

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?

After Seeing My Ex // on Tinder

swiping left in child’s pose
as if i didn’t do it

as if to say
no, let me help you

a phone covered in milk
i jumped in a new life

and forgot it
i couldn’t find happiness

when it was in my hand
i couldn’t leave the house

//

i think of you alone there
with my choices

repeating themselves
like children

white cells
the haunt of bodies

moving you from room
to room, where once

we passed through 
inside each other

walked through hallways
of pictures of organs

murmurs following
us with eyes, and we felt

alive, if for a moment
before

the moment
had always been there

Rule 34

how much
of the internet
have I’ve seen?

how many thoughts
& friends now side
with my ex?

how many places
will I bed, like
a predator?

we are affiliated, &
would not be
elsewhere, we say

we repeat ourselves, tracked
by those who remind us what
a person is mainly

the few lines
we know
spaced out

repair based on items
cried most often
a little spine, a little

eaten by wolves, not
simply followed, the bones
made powder by morning

hounds asking, even
when satisfied
what else is there?

Inheritance

&
here I thought
that was all

an apple a day
if i survive it

cross
like a grapefruit
between
two things

neither of which
i can remember
neither is grape

neither is me
it’s not
as simple as

putting two plants
together, even
in the right conditions

some
just don’t
make anything

What if Bugs Bunny Were Bugs Instead of a Bunny

I think of replacing myself
with bugs
fumbling over themselves
heaving
grabbing skin, grain
absorbed
or otherwise freed
like other, smaller
bugs. you would like it if
I had been
now that I am
but I wasn’t
a spider hurls its heart
into its legs
blood hits the wall
and goes up it
like a roach. there is no
naturally occurring
instance of me
in the leaf litter
in the rot
I descend carrots
I say what is up. I
tape your heart

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