in the cohort of her hands, a disorder

lost dignity wrapped in the red of need
reckless and arrogant as lilies

an abundance of periphery
wavers at the sea-black hand

of hands of time of hands

rune stones
black granite spattered in stars

a slutter of language
of words of wombs

necrotic we burst
a pause of however

a narcosis of want

meander of limbs
siphoning brine-white tide

colorless-the disorder
marquis of white shadow
on seal slick waves

and the lilies,
petal outward

and in the silence
there were unknown weeks
where the flowers foundered
other bodies

there is a form in the garden
still as clay

we reddened our mouths
and still like clay

slant of a neck untattered
partitioning cerebral sea
arcing back on itself

there was a benign negligence
in the want-of flowers of lilies

vague signs of amplitude
pachyderm and small
in the grooves of lack

malnourished, contrite hands
flushed blooms of pink paper along
pink walls-flush seas of lack

vague symbols of wood and
purulent understanding a

nest of roots
dipping towards the alkaline sea

we didn’t even begin to understand
the range of mourning
becoming us

smooth white shells of elegant
weakened at the hock
distempered by the recent winters
foundering in the vacant space
between us

I mule you
through the tapestries of my desert
and am still, here
where I don’t belong

here I am spread as an excess
as an unfortunate truth
glossed by negligent hands

anxious, with the possible morning
indistinct dwindling winter
curling pink paper
along the walls of black sea
earth-tide

small weakened arrangement of groundcover
jostling in the ferns of truth

we measured the years in numerals
as with skin, ardent and ruddy

palpable lost youth

the rare wood of mistake
loosened from sleep

in the morning we resemble damaged objects
prized for obedience
at odd angles of deformation to time

in the body, a funeral
still warm

skin and stone a slender neck of atonement
for the absence of home

How you become a part of the earth, and away from it.
Grab your furs and your moss. Pull them closer.

I have tried to walk near the entangled forest.
Its belly is swollen and impregnable.

Its warm tongue flicked at me. “It’s just a fever.”
Though you flail your arms dismissively
as though to ward off danger.

There is a malice in everything that whispers.

“It’s just a drop of blood,” you say.
Though it draws you out in anger.

It doesn’t mean something.
Though your eyes are prophetic, crowing for the dead.
Still.

Everything in unity.

This white morning may destroy me.
How I bend and unbend without my acquiescence.

By nightfall my eyes will be moons.
I will open for a moment
and blink out.
Swift as dust.

father arrives carrying lovelessly
the weight of his own shadow
across the furniture.

throws his socks missing
the mouth of the laundry bin.

exhaust of television static
as his mouth opens agape

receiving the dizzy fizz of
turning channels

like spindrift through the windows
moist, wizened on his resigned couch

he falls asleep like a pin
dropped into the heart of the ocean—

life, what have you done?
mother lacquers her fingernails
as the dog wags his tail furiously

the mirrors ache as dead moments
grow roots in the viscera,

as shadows curb themselves
perfecting their disappearances,

the madhouse women
rehearsing their discomfitures

time swiftly passed
through the very past of things

that we have forgotten,
late to unsay the day struck by wind
and too uneventful to even plead
for undivided rest.

deep sepulcher and shallow pavement.
     a sharp exchange of glances,
     and then like snow-bed,
     gone at first feverish light — all!

in me, the world is still,
   (you are my
     world)
   growing roots, a throb of petals.
  you bequeath me, a necklace of hands.
   railway of stars, like the white
    of your silence and mine,
   inaudible stone of our
     ever growing distance.

scraps of metal archipelagic
    in Manila and the immaterial
language of billboards:

my mind, the crepuscular garden,
     your memory,
  the overgrowth,
never plucked — stilled, unfazed,
   your slenderness a sign of
     eternity: lignified.

drowning in a sea of stars and lavender

you fill my head with dreams of forests and our feet on ice

    you text me at 2 am and I pray I am the first thing on your mind

but I'm trying not to let my red string get knotted up in your fingers

   that you play so carefully with

For the past nine or so years,
he weaves a blanket. Night after night,
he incorporates thread after thread
of caresses and warm words. For the
blanket's purpose is to dispel all
forms of darkness, real and imagined,
to combat the mosters under the bed
and inside one's head, to imitate
a canopy of stars.

Night after night, he hands me the
unfinished blanket. It is soft and
warm. And though I still sleep with
the light on, the blanket is enough
to remind me that the ticking of the
clock is sometimes similar to the
beating of two hearts.

Ace is a waterfall
And I should never let you go first
Two is you
And you always pick me
Three is me
And I always drink up
Four, floor
And you're always last
Five, guys
And I smile as you drink
Six, chicks
And you laugh
Seven, heaven
And I'm never as close as you
Eight, date
And you're always mine
Nine, rhyme
And I take your favorites
Ten, categories
And you pick cars
Jack is Never Have I Ever
And I know how to get you
Queen, questions
And you know I always lose
King makes the rules
And on my numb lips
I only taste stale Natty
Instead of sweet words
To make you love me forever
But then
If it was a rule
It wouldn't be real
Just forced
Like my laughter
At your friends' jokes
So I finish my beer
Crush the can in my hand
Like you with my heart
And continue to play
The game