blessings/resentments


My body is a blessing

best seen in the sun
when shadows fall like lace
across limbs

best felt under light fingers
that tug a sock to rest
in the curve of my ankle

best understood
from a distance



A body is a blessing
to the man in the bar

the flashing of his hands, his teeth
on thighs, on necks

his hot breath worshipping
his bloodshot, heavy-lidded revering

shadows fall like cages
and a body
is not a blessing.

I read somewhere
that you could bite off your own pinky finger,
as easily as biting a baby carrot in half.

We think that we’re resilient,
miracles incarnate,
but we are just bones waiting to be crushed between each other’s teeth.

We are waiting to be
plucked peeled battered baked fried mashed
into something unrecognizable,
something that someone
will look at and say,
“that’s too beautiful to eat.”

she is the kind of girl
to stare up at the stars for too long
to let her feet
stray from their path
because her mind has sailed up
and away
into the galaxy
with
utter disregard
for gravity

the kind of girl to abandon her body
in order to expand her mind
to get a little lost
because she’s too busy
finding something new

the kind of girl to get lost anywhere
because the stars are not the only place
for the mind
to wander to

drawn to more than
celestial features

she is that kind of girl

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
"Love has no ending.

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

"I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

"The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world."

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
"O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

"In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

"In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

"Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

"O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

"O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

"O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart."

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

I remember asking my dad,
“How many stars are in the sky,”
and he said something like,
“Way too many to count.”
But I’ve counted.
And after recounting
                                      and recounting
and scribbling in my notebook
under my fathers flashlight
I can tell you that there is
indeed a number.

And to this day I prefer
reading the stars over anything.
They’re the oldest book ever written.
Space: the oldest canvas to be sewn
and the cosmos the paint of Picasso.
Each spec is its own character
each pair a set of eyes
where I can lose myself in their gaze.
A celestial connect the dots
where I collect the pictures
and pick out my favorite spots.

But when my son
is old enough to ask,
“How many stars are in the sky?”
I’ll just hand him a notebook
and tell him to read what he sees.

I wrote a poem
today

I traced curling letters
in invisible ink
tentatively
across his chest

a tattoo
only I can see

I watched the vowels fall
     down
           his
               spine
only to pool
in the small of his back

I sent the consonants to snake along his arms
the prettiest of my words encircling his wrists

my lips trail behind
erasing as they go

I turned him into a book
that only I can read