The glen where felled men slept
Where the creek’s deep bed trembled, reeled
Where the green ferns, restless, crept
Where the breezes blew, flew, wheeled
Where the trees, the sweet elms wept
Where the gentle red wrens nested
Where the elks, when freed, then stepped
Where the fleet, serene deer rested
Where the scented bells were kept
Where the jeweled, fresh dew met green
The glen where felled men slept,
Where men were never seen

When I was young, sometimes I’d forget
to be afraid of the Jabberwocky.
I’d skip along beside his emerald-wet
scales, on the sun-strewn sidewalk, me
prattling on about apple ciders
and Lucy Maud Montgomery,
half-humming boats and spiders
beneath a pale sky, dry and summery,
and he would lumber, unsteady, by my side,
trudging heavily through wild glens
till the dusk at long last turned to night
and I remembered his name once again.

This is the story of a box
and a girl.
And this box –
and this box
was like no other box – No,
like no other box that owned its existence.
Eons of history lived on its walls – I mean, moved on its walls,
I mean, carvings of history played out on the walls
Waves smashed their own heads onto ocean floor dunes,
The lightning swung fierce on the clouds into squalls,
The engravings – the caves shook with war, the volcanoes,
They spat and they hissed, and the nymphs in their watery mists
Danced with haloes on graves of the fallen.
The lifeblood, it pulsed through the veins of this box,
Through the veins of my palm as I held it, the carvings,
They danced with their raw, starving ardors, their bloods and their stardust
And lifeblood, it seeped, lotus droplets, it leaped onto grooves of my skin
Splashed as sparks on my skin and spilled into my palms,
Till my body was filled with the life of this box, with the thrums of this box, with the force of this box
Till the sweet little voice called my name through this box
Whispered, “Open the lid and release me. This box
Is my prison. I’ve risen through hellfire and sunlight and war-blood,
And isn’t it time for the earth to revere me? I am Hope,
I am weary; I am tired of Death and Despair huddled near me
I yearn for the taste of the earth and the Furies
Release me, my vassal, unchain me, release me.”
This is the story of a box
and a girl,
and a thrum, and a voice, and a palm, and a life -
and a war, and a choice, and a hope, and a price,
and a voice that implored me to open the lid
through the trembling, quivering walls,
and I did.

i’ve become star-flooded.
my mouth’s overrun with sunk stars,
stars studding my cupid’s bow hollows,
dripping onto my hands and the high pile carpet.
their waxy-hot gloss is scalding and sharp,
white rust still engulfing my tongue in unpolished
supernovas and sparks
sparking metal-doused cinder and oxygen darkness.
i’ve become star-glutted,
my star-clotted lungs are heavy,
stars twine through my breathing like the sweat of a
cigarette-blotted miasma,
eroding the chasms, the veins of my shivering fingertips stretching
tips reaching for stars, for star-bellied galaxies,  
fingertips stretching towards cavities, onyx skies flashing,
for stars with their clashing and golden-scorched glow,
for a star-buried secret
i lost long ago.

Forgive me, for I have since forgotten.
I have traded in my inkblood for parchment
I have starched the graffiti from my walls,
Ignored calls from long-dead poets,
Because I never quite quoted them the way that I was meant to.
I have bent to the divine quill, my fill of pretty words
Has overflown into untouched urns and silent monasteries.
Forgive me, for I have banished my sword-drawn histories
I have untangled the vanquished threads of my revelry.
This verse is an apology.
This verse is my best memory.

The roses are blooming and cloying
The vase on the counter is new
I find it acutely annoying
That one of your rugs is askew.
I know from your eyes you’re enjoying
The very same wine I can’t stand.
I spend the entire night toying
With the ring sitting on my left hand.

You say, “Is there anything sweeter
Than kissing a lover goodbye?”
The creak of the puttering heater
Absolves me the need to reply.
You make a drunk toast to St. Peter,
To reaching his heavenly vault.
I wonder how badly you treat her;
I wonder how much is my fault.

The night has grown frigid and waning,
I stare out the windows and smoke.
You yawn and begin your complaining
On how she is running you broke.
Outside, it is sullen and raining,
I’m heavy with secrets I keep.
I know there’s no point in remaining.
When I leave, you’re already asleep.

My sweet little mollusk,
You polish the sea-tangy sand dollars smooth with the soles of your feet
You fill up your sweet siren lungs with a sun-sated breeze and submerge your bare fingers
Until they can sweep the slippery silt of the seabed abyss. I can’t sleep.
Your anemone fingers trace watery ripples through the ebbs of my dreams, trailing streams
Of fluorescent-blue algae sunk deep.  Your barnacle tongue shatters ships
Into ruinous splinters of treasure. I kiss
The cerulean ocean that hides in your lips.

My sweet little scallop,
The galloping waves break the curves of your shallows.
There are flecks of unpressed sea salt brine in your irises, tireless riptides of foaming-bright promises.
Your skin has the silvery sparkle of scales that effervesce endlessly, bending beneath the fierce tides of your palmprints.
I’m dropping. The current caresses your cheeks’ fishbone hollows, rethreading the necklaces strung out of seashells.
You bury your face in the swells of the tempest. I envy
Your azure, I worship your lapis.

My sweet little mussel,
Your tussled cyan-coral hair is unbleached, unleeched and resplendent
I am rendered transcendent by the green iridescence of your silk seaweed whispers. I have drowned in your splendid.
I can still hear your aquamarine through the white roaring waves cracking onto the shore.
I want more. Your crustaceous sand whirlpool has nestled below the soft curl of your chest. You press the world’s oceans in the dip of your palms
And drink deep from the waves swirling under.
I’ve drowned in the water-spilled seas that are cupped in your hands,
I have drowned in the pearls of your wonder.