at first invisible
a sudden gleam, revealed in spring:
grain of sugar in the snow
you nourish me when all else melts.

the car feels like you
dusty ice on the windshield
i can't see out

your eyes are wiser than mine,
so i take your hand
close my eyes
let you drive.

after the storm there was nothing;
like he knew he someday would,
he returned to the second day of creation

sky and ocean

a black cloud crept in from the endless horizon
only bringing lightning
and it was too late to cry out -
all that was left
was to turn his face to the sky and wait for rain.

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.

i. reward ten thousand dollars
it scares me to think you will drive me home one day, one night, one night when i am very drunk and the stars do not glisten because there are no stars left! i am sure of the reason:
upon being conceived you swallowed them all whole. this is not purposefully clandestine so much as misunderstood knowledge:
in our lifetime these celestial objects will be mistaken, much like a well-intentioned teratoma, for
cancer
countless times you will be plucked, yet unripe, from the fire that will as soon liquify your flesh and cleanse your soul

ii. wanted, dead or alive
psychosis is not a watershed.
it is an amalgamation of the bugs who have crawled up your legs and gorged themselves on your fruity blood before hibernating
it is a room of walls plastered with ******* of nauseating pale cadavers, of empty homes, of longing hands, of breast buds and tied legs and virginal lips and bare ***** and stained sheets
it was in you forever and there is nothing to blame but an imbalance, for
you are the duality of...girlhood.
you are soiled ******* and unkempt hair, abused plush dolls and sticky hands, infected wounds and sunburn sting, stale cereal and coloring pages
you are satin veils and vain slumber, tired tears and starving entrails, hesitant touch and static vhs, shrill laughter and breathy song
you are itchy bug bites. you are snow in my eyelashes.
you are a lissome angel pregnant, god bless you, with a fetal (fatal?) evil; perhaps my fear begins here, or perhaps it greets me when your aura bites my eyelids...alack!
it must be so. **** orange light suffuses my thin veins. the sun exudes apprehension and abruptly the car is totaled and
this is why you cannot drive me home. even when i have become quite inebriated:
it is not natural for the air to be so warm; only ere our galactic body closes her eyes.
surely you will **** me. you are no creature of the night. run me over; crush me between your toes; let my nectar grow trees in the cracks of this, our, every godforsaken town.

iii. have you seen me?
her neotenous thighs stick, like sap, to the concrete floor, water seeps beneath the cinderblock. dust collects between her fingers in which she clutches, with the brutality of youth, a softened - if garishly colored - carton of apple juice. four-o'clock sun pierces the thick glass window (if one will call it such) and she feels listless; rather than squint she pores over the illumination with intent that, in her unsuspecting naivete, she is not yet aware she holds. before she ***** in enough light to blind her she hears a voice that feels familiar:
come upstairs
soon enough it will be ruefully forgotten
soon enough she will realize she was bagged and thrown in the trunk
too late she will wish to exact her revenge

ears pop, boys laugh
you look nice in pink
look nice in my head, in the sky, in
the pool
im a ****** and you know,
you know and we talk about
***. we talk about making
war
which is funny because i still can't walk

look at me,
all day
never blink, thinking about
me
how nice do i look in pink? in your head, in the
pool. in the sky.
im just a kid and you know
you pick me up by my neck and pin me against the wall and i laugh because you don't know that i still do not know how to walk

my limbs are cold and purple and i ache for the past;
they will be rosy soon (if it turns out to be raynaud's in the end)
cairo used to be a boom town, she said; it ain't anymore,
if we're talking about the same place
i miss the waiter in kentucky
he couldn't have been more than fifteen
someday he'll buy me a house

pull on my teeth, press my tongue, make me *****

languid touch oozes from small claws; they do not yet know the wonder of keratin
my body is no temple. it has been harrowed by years of disillusionment
racked by anticipation
oh, the notion of some epagomenal redeemer to lift my vessel from damnation!
tears stream heavy and hot
soul is devoured
what remains is a moon-sliver; a sylphlike cadaver, an effigy of a bone ****** dry of marrow
from the rib came life