Look at what god was given. What did you do with your last silence. You sharpened yourself in a whale and let your baby die in an owl. Yourself has no world in this place. None of my cousins are dead but I'll never see them again. My sickest son has no hell. Have no hell.

crystals of orange peel
burnish your fingernails-

my love:

twist your hair into
crescent knots
and push the bedtable needles
towards God;

make dreamkissing meals
of the palms beneath you;
and seek together for our
sour calamity

scion of extinguished stars,
skinfeeling wraith,
what has crossed your
mind today?

th  e nothingman

goes to play

                in wide          wide
playground

doodling
                 with pal e
nons
ense

              c rayons a new

jewely
skin


he is made with


nothingbones &
hollow
teeth
&
the soup

howlingness

of hers
and his
and theirs and
if's

newish
fatty

comedy

thickish about th
e
[e
dg
es]

budding mouths of graffiti
sprawl beneath her fingertips;

her eyes, like lanterns
flicker with saccharine ghosts
and she lets all of it
fall from her hands -

millions of untidy
little lives

the pavement
forest eats all wings
and spins them into ossified
gossamer--
the long teeth
of normalcy

mothered by a silent
shape my
mouth