It's never quite right, he said, the way people look,
the way the music sounds, the way the words are
written.
It's never quite right, he said, all the things we are
taught, all the loves we chase, all the deaths we
die, all the lives we live,
they are never quite right,
they are hardly close to right,
these lives we live
one after the other,
piled there as history,
the waste of the species,
the crushing of the light and the way,
it's not quite right,
it's hardly right at all
he said.

don't I know it? I
answered.

I walked away from the mirror.
it was morning, it was afternoon, it was
night

nothing changed
it was locked in place.
something flashed, something broke, something
remained.

I walked down the stairway and
into it.

all things build slowly

slow building

into 1 slowly,

all build

all say 1

1 say all

into 1 say

all building

all slowly

all say

all 1

1

The soap in my downstairs bathroom reminds me
Of the ooze that leaked from a pregnant snail
After I mutilated her shell to use the meat as bait.
Forcing a hook through her body and casting it into a lake,
I waited for a fish to swallow the tiny knife
And hoped it would get lodged in his esophagus.
I pulled his lungs from the water
And laughed as he writhed at the end of my string.

I don’t fish anymore.

I’ve never seen his skin,
But I’ve traced the curve of his ribs
Drawing star maps on his anatomy
I’ve witnessed the blade of his hip
Scratched his spine
And run fingertips across his collar

And last night I couldn’t sleep
Watching a set of fragile wings smaller than my pinkie nail
Circle the glow of my lamp, transfixed
After bobbing in and out of the lampshade,
It sputtered and fell onto my bedside table
Moths never know light is lethal