I used to curl my body up small
and write poetry in the kitchen

heartwater cresting in my eyes,
dirty smoke crawling upward from between
narrow fingers
and blooming open against the ceiling
like silver flowers,
ashes on the table,
teeth like bone berries in my mouth
red and sour cloaked in cooking wine
heart bleating,

losing heat and composure
in the icy swaddle of
bluewinter afternoon lastlight

continuing the crazed scrawl
onward into the black hours of morning
arched over pages
like a mother or raven or predator or gargoyle
shrouding my prize:    
my vicious poetry      
                                                             ­         
                                                   my hopeless meandering prose

The Pigs
symbolize for me now
the hell
that was the year that just fell away
a year now spent and in ruins
dropped off like a golden husk
dead cobra flesh
summer sugared flakes of skin,
torn with teeth from a wintered mouth

The Pigs were an omen on that day
last January
day of first blizzard and weather churn,
sleet and howling,
first day of white knuckles and prickling thighs,
first day of numb chins and jowls,
thick and gummy feeling against hands

dead and uncovered in the back
of a grisly pickup truck
The Pigs came into existence,
piled ten feet high and fifteen long,
bodies jutting stiff and macabre
reaching for the sky, blank and indifferent.

I remember being disturbed by their enormous heads
and the way the ice formed a crust over their bodies
binding them one to another-snout to useless ass, milky underbelly
to back
creating not a pile
but a mass.
Somewhat
globular.

I watched
mesmerized by them in their sorrowful death bed,
gliding over black ice down that empty leg of highway,
black beautiful forests woven into color hungry sky
and chalky fields on all sides
devouring sound
I felt numb and small on the back of that prairie stretch
In my blacks and my wools,
gut colored scarf around my throat
Stuffed into my panting mouth
Breath freezing to the yarn and to my lips
Cold wet song escaping me
-my protest against the freeze that held me
Music about wolves against my ears-the haunting lyrics
Stumbled upon by a man with ancient desires, the need for
Animal blood, stone dwellings and strong women

This collage woven by the senses
Became me in that moment
For me a holy moment-every piece of me engaged and
Acute
Body clenched, mind awhirl, ears ringing, eyes filled with white

And then The Pigs whipped past me-in their resting place of crusted steel and chipping
Paint, their eyes clenched like hundreds of tiny fists,
Their mouths open and crookedly petrified
around the last breath of their lifesong
Their flesh as pink as the day they were born
Their minds and organs preserved by the patient
hands of Manitoba winter
The smell of death was imagined then-I was
Stricken by the harsh, wet scent of flesh
Against the back of my throat it lingered for only a moment

In that moment I was complete

I blinked and The Pigs were beyond me-one hundred miles an hour
to nowhere beautiful
And I was left with a sense of awe and a thousand questions
Death riding my thoughts
Hand against my padded heart

I moved forward in time-caught my ride
Which followed the tracks gouged by
The dirty pick-up for a little while
Something small and true stirring within me
Protected beneath all of my meticulous layers
A new awareness of something
dark and curious in the world.

the forgiveness came

suddenly like the break of a day so bright
and so hot in springtime mess,
like that first blazing lashing
of sunshine so brazen upon wintered flesh
upon skin, gentle
like the sound of a lamb’s feet on soft mud,
skin, white
and cool as milk.

it came with a perfect and welcomed brutality-
burning slowly,
definitely,
defiantly.

forgiveness came,
so enormous with sadness-
a sense of loss profound as the bruised velveteen of a
sky ripe
with summer heat and
the full, squeaky sound
of june-happy,
beer-drunk teenagers
biting one another’s lips in dewy fields.

the forgiveness came so clear

it tasted in my mouth like penny bile.

it pulled in my heart like a small perfect spoon pulls
through honey sat uncovered three days too long
on a windowsill
the ripples folding over themselves slowly,
grey and golden with sugar.

the forgiveness changed me right then, as
the loss of you changed
me before.

it struck me.
it was holy.
it carved something
smaller, newer, smoother
out of this life.
a glimpse of my core
was revealed then.

the perfect part of me-the finest grain
the purest fragrance
most sensual to the touch

my core-what I grew from, what my life swirls around
my core-what breaks light into fractals, what is heavy for it’s size
what is pure and secret in me

through this forgiveness is unveiled
for the first time
since I was born.

the cold and the snow
hang above in giant monochrome lungs
that sag and are filled with fluid halfway
to crystal: clouds that devour themselves
and spit themselves back out
quietly above us.

we wait for the grand purge.
the throwdown of winter's hands.
the release of copious white.
the gentle unfold of sloping blankets
and ice expanding in every concrete vein.

we wait for the wind that has teeth in it's mouth and
a deep throat. a wind that grew fierce rolling fitfully across
aching prairie miles.

it is nearly december and every day we
wonder about the impending deep freeze.
we consider (eyes cast warily upward)
the fist of mid-January noon,
the subtle split of lips and chapped hands,
boots gnawed by salt spilled raw on the streets,
necks and legs
and fingers and feet
put away until spring-
swaddled in flannel wool goosedown cotton tightly wound
until all curvature is lost.

how we will shuffle penny-eyed between pockets of
warmth, curled into ourselves
in protection of our hearts that rattle sweetly beneath
every binding layer,

buried in a six month breadth
of silence.

the cold and the snow
hang above in giant monochrome lungs
that sag and are filled with fluid halfway
to crystal: clouds that devour themselves
and spit themselves back out
quietly above us.

we wait for the grand purge.
the throwdown of winter's hands.
the release of copious white.
the gentle unfold of sloping blankets
and ice expanding in every concrete vein.

we wait for the wind that has teeth in it's mouth and
a deep throat. a wind that grew fierce rolling fitfully across
aching prairie miles.

it is nearly december and every day we
wonder about the impending deep freeze.
we consider (eyes cast warily upward)
the fist of mid-January noon,
the subtle split of lips and chapped hands,
boots gnawed by salt spilled raw on the streets,
necks and legs
and fingers and feet
put away until spring-
swaddled in flannel wool goosedown cotton tightly wound
until all curvature is lost.

how we will shuffle penny-eyed between pockets of
warmth, curled into ourselves
in protection of our hearts that rattle sweetly beneath
every binding layer,

buried in a six month breadth
of silence.

Oh sister,
growing fiercely from between the cracks of those
big city sidewalks

I know you love the new-found
sparkle on your pointed shoulder,
your shoulder now chiseled by a place
rough and dripping glamor,
you have been gobbled up by
a culture booming and
ravenous for new blood
you have been swept away and intoxicated
by the strangeness and the newness and the heartlessness
of that place.

but don't forget us girl,
we
your family of
patient prairie dwellers
don't forget this humble, dirty city,
this heartsoil
these winters are what
made you so strong

big city baby
don't forget our cold season

the way the winter hems us in
and
forces us to
make art and get real

the way that
our faces grow white,
eyes grow dark and humble,
hands curl and stiffen
clenching at nothing for months

the way these hearts and souls,
nestled in ghost orchid flesh,
nestled in snow,
grow fat and red blooming carelessly


like the open mouths

of winter flowers

there is something tragic about the young.
there is something haunting about the slope of a young man’s browning neck.
his neck and those sweet earlobes and the tremor and clench of his thoughts provoking him
and tension bleeding quietly through the tissue and muscle and precious bone. there is something tragic about the young.
men, how they break out of one neediness and into another….

i had this lover who hated women
he hated women because his mother hated him.
when he told me this i decided i would forever keep my heart away from him,
he was dangerous
and full of fear
and full of this need to destroy.
he needed to ruin.

he needed to tear into something tender and pure and foolishly expectant
and pour all of his darkness into the frayed, howling gap.
suddenly he needed something in my slightness, my body whiteclad and open and unbroken ...
one spring cold with persistence
i forgot about that promise to myself
when for some reason i felt                                     so ugly

and then yes  he ripped,

ripped softly

into me.

Foolheartybeerdrinkingsunohfahgun.

“watch your mouth young man” reigning in those eyes
(as falsely blue and pristine as a pool
in the warm and syrup stain sticky sweet drudgery of the deep north end.  children wading through the spots hot like the inside of skin vanilla icecream creaming down their wrists in rivulets and popsicles the shape and color of a dream rocket dripping- tiny neon red and patriot blue clouds bloom beneath the surface of the urban pond

dripulet, dripulet, dripulet)

I can just tell your mother warned those lips with a quivering finger and a voice clipped and heavy teeth crunching around the easy threats tossed at you: your knees raw as if scrubbed with steel wool and the lingering bitterness of backtalk and your first dirty word lay soft and white like moss or foam on the back of your tongue...

I can tell you gripped handfuls of braid in your hands at the playground and confessed love your whole life using destruction as a vessel. you tore out of your mother and tore and tore through childhood gripping and clawing and pulling heart constricting small and fierce the whole time like a fist in your chest.

this game
is not okay with me anymore.

you animal i am tired.

i am tired of the
antique glimmer in your eyes. boyish and
hunting and thirsty with instinct.

i am tired of the bones that jut through
your flesh and carve
into mine.

your knotted, silky figure drifting
and catching in the macrame nets
through the mammoth doorways
beneath the swelling curtains

in my mind you are an insect or
a wisp of frozen breath or
an actor sweeping the floor
with his eyelashes

at the end
of a brilliant
and terrifying
performance.

you said it happened while you were slicing lemons,
in the back
room
or that it happened and the sensation hit you
...like the scent of citrus, exploding like spit
and light from the pocked yellow
body
and you understood me then
and my quiet fire
and you buckled under your own
weight

mouth cupping an invisible star
eyes vacant and holy

its about time
you
realized
the
teeth
and the
bristle
and the
fist
of this love.

he and i, smoked on the balcony
in our underwear, ducking out of
site, throwing
flowers, long stemmed unkempt dusty with
perfume flowers
over the edge, flicking our small brown wrists
blossoms falling head over foot,
twirling languidly in the
evening breath, landing at the feet
of the passers by
our foreheads pressed together
hands pressed together
dusty
with perfume

lens is ancient and crusted with a film of
old blood of the skies and
liquidy fragments of soul that fall from eyes
souls that brush up against the glass
again and again:

the woman with hot black nest of hair
and strange greyish (bone grey flesh) that was
my muse in the winter of nineteen
when she swaggered between warm pockets,
smoked in her t-shirt and apron-
blades of wind
carving out of her
a masterpiece

woman with brown brown riverstone
eyes, settled in bruisy crescents. woman
with the stones (petrified ghosts) that
swung heavily from her neck, my muse in the spring
of nineteen in the trees heart wrapped in musky fabric and
feet wrapped in leather. god she was
beautiful:cloaked in the reddened husk
of shrinking sunlight, hands curled around
my every word

muse in the summer of nineteen. man with
ruthless, undefined lips, long body charcoal
smudged by a sweaty thumb edges nonexistent
neverspoke of evil never heard of
the brand of love i made
came and went without a sound-

flock of blackbirds, oceanheave,
death parting her lips

this body is coming apart, piece by piece and floating off,  molecular
balloons of flesh trilling in
the air, making small music
staining surfaces and objects-floors, windowsills, the smoke of your cigarette withering
in the ashtray, the fragmented glass of the ashtray
the whites of your eyes,
the whites of the teeth of the animals that hang around (shivering with
need)
-heartbreathpink.

i am endlessly small and endlessly deep and endlessly chaotic.

hes in good with the junkyard owner
and he likes that

they are both old men
trying to patch up their fractures
beer bellies coming along nicely
hands lacquered with paint
and modest discretion
and cigarette
blazing yellow

ABSOLUTELY NO SMOKING IN THE SCRAPYARD!
but he does.
killing time.
he does, fat eyes laughing
at blood on dashboards
metallic toe jam
and irony only he
finds
evident

he knows he can
stroke his vices
wherever
he so chooses
around here

the owner,
Dave
says so

and he makes sure he tells me
as he lights up
halfway out the door
Dave staring me down
with grease in his eyes

that 'not just ANYBODY
gets these
kind of privileges'

i know dad
i know

You are curled around your tattered, sky blue, chunky flannel
second childhood skins.
dreaming of that childhood as the sun stretches her slippery limbs
through a tear in the curtains
your mother made
and i am watching your body at peace with your mind and the bed
that suspends you
everything about the image is overly thin and threadbare and
crumbling coddled rubbed by the stories

that
hold you up and hollow you out
and suck you dry and stroke your bones and
kiss you again and again and again

until your heart is eroded


and the cherry dust settles

around your feet

they fill your mouth with light
and stones
they
illuminate you
here and now

before my slumber
tarnished eyes.

love poem.

eyes sink in skull quiver
lashes feather, hands reach/check yourself/hands reach
lip on ear, lobe all flesh and sweet little hairs
tastes like:

oh god and then we were on the street
corner and the light made skeletons out of
us
and he clawed at me! with his drunken limbs
he swiped. put his
mouth next to mine, over mine like a palm (for the first time)
breathtaking:
V-words-viciousvivaciousvolatilevent

tear away, fling off

slip through space: tumble up the stairway:
heart howling: leave him
swallowing darkness in

frantic gulps.

and you dream of: your bodies
made out of words-thousands and thousands of
minute black crumbling
compilations, language is the blood.

:wither:wasteland:clutch:sweep:swell:smear:grit:heave:

done.

you wore this shirt on the first day of red lipstick
lipstick in general
lipstick that created on your face a new dimension
fire around the mouth, metallic red smear, beckoning light and
darkness to enter at once
to
play in your mouth like foreign tongues.
paint that stained your stories pink.

I wear it now in your absence and there is
no colour on me
only within
the same slippery shade-
it keeps me alive.

I did not mean to but when I saw you,
in the flesh for the first time, I felt as if we had traveled together, I felt as if you knew.

I could barely speak because I wasn't sure where to begin.  You had filled my nights for months,
I was overwhelmed by your sudden solidity,
wrapped up in tricks of the light, speaking with a tongue that I understood.

I wanted to grab at you and dig my hands into you and feel everything.
You were not a fantasy you were real!
Can you treat them the same? Can you toy with fantasy as if it were replaceable? Kiss it upon the mouth,
swallow it like pulp, sew wings to it's white, quivering skin,
throw it off an edge, dance with it, shoes of fire, voices visual,

tongues unwinding like rope?

You can but it will change, it will warp, it will put on your clothes,
it will love you like any messy beating heart,
breathing blood,

it will envelope you.

her hair was like wild fire
her eyes laced with charcoal. intentions bold.
her legs were dressed in purplepleather
her hands dipped in tar, candied looking in
their
impossible black gloves. she told me
over pink drinks that
she had grown up a lot
since the last time we met
and tears danced their way down
her apple cheeks
and she didnt bother to wipe
them away
burning holes in anything and everything.

i took two steps back.