smoke-sheet eyes, you
questioned me behind
a mesh divider
all my hot hard "no"s
all my parting throes -
terrifying, endless, and gaping.

you questioned,
and never answered
you opened me like
an underripe fig
I didn't understand
how a person
could pull me apart
too soon.
Now I mould
over, I bruise
and hug the wet,
black ground.

is the way
you look at
me
only a function of the way
you hold your hands
there, in your lap
closed, slumping
closed?

if I closed mine
would yours suddenly open
uncurling
would they grasp and
catch
at the air, open?

mine is not the heart
of a flickering butterfly
or a candle in a howling wind
a fragile thing
and while it is tempestuous
arhythmic
it is not fragile

the heart is a muscle
it pumps
it is not a glass ornament
for you to peer at
on hours, afraid of shattering  
it, it is to be fed
with iron
with density
blood and touch
-and it cannot be
blocked up.
it will fail.

in the curve
of the ox-bow
the tepid currents
a second sky
winds its way
on this earth.
it is false.

my mirror, my mirror
when I approach
your light grows dim
and murky with clouds
of sand.
From a distance I thought -
you were a bright glassy hope
but
you strand little things
fill in houses
before drying up
in the heat of the sun.

Yours is not first light
nor resilience
I am glad
to have walked along the shoreline
and in the full tempestuous surf
I am glad
I am big enough
not to be caught like
your little fish
narcissitic,
desperate to find my own reflection
in you.

in the curve
of the ox-bow
of the currents
i return to the child-self
to wading for the sake
of wading
to feel the coolness of the water's ebb
and not
to waste love, wanting.

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me.

Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the ***** of the lake:
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my ***** and be lost in me.

you touched your wrists
to mine
and a rash blossomed
across my skin
red and dry
ran across  
indigo hills
fields of turned-over soil
in the night-time
to cool my
strangled sweat
to find a sink
a light in the kitchen.

im sorry, i promise
i'll buy a slice
i just need to use your sink, please.

fluorescent-white
heat
i put the water on the hottest setting
and i scrub and
scrub, and scrub
fast, and hard
i rinse the raw
i leave.

when I wake up
for all my scrubbing
the rippling rash, the buds
are still there
under my skin.
a lone fungal stalk
of crimson
a fruiting body
rises from my wrist.

this does not belong
here
like a broken bone
bending in the wrong direction
under the skin
like the voice on
the other end of the line
this is not real

Webster was much possessed by death
And saw the skull beneath the skin;
And breastless creatures under ground
Leaned backward with a lipless grin.

Daffodil bulbs instead of *****
Stared from the sockets of the eyes!
He knew that thought clings round dead limbs
Tightening its lusts and luxuries.

Donne, I suppose, was such another
Who found no substitute for sense,
To seize and clutch and penetrate;
Expert beyond experience,

He knew the anguish of the marrow
The ague of the skeleton;
No contact possible to flesh
Allayed the fever of the bone.

    .  .   .   .  .

Grishkin is nice: her Russian eye
Is underlined for emphasis;
Uncorseted, her friendly bust
Gives promise of pneumatic bliss.

The couched Brazilian jaguar
Compels the scampering marmoset
With subtle effluence of cat;
Grishkin has a maisonette;

The sleek Brazilian jaguar
Does not in its arboreal gloom
Distil so rank a feline smell
As Grishkin in a drawing-room.

And even the Abstract Entities
Circumambulate her charm;
But our lot crawls between dry ribs
To keep our metaphysics warm.

all things consist as sounds consist
of the elements
[Here follows the history of the four]
evident then,
what we have said before
all men seek causes named
we cannot name any described before
not at all.
the Subject lisps
it is young and bone by virtue
the essence and substance of
flesh and tissues
the elements and
the names - fire and earth and water and air.
He has not said clearly.
Our views have been expressed before;
but let us return the difficulties
perhaps we may get some help towards
our difficulties.
The Subject of our inquiry:
we are seeking the universe.

the fire, forthcoming
as flame would follow
moth to candle
vapor to lust
lust to yearn
yearning to dust.
A fire’s flame, inquiries made
the perfect deep shade
of rust.

crumbling to ferrous, ferric
streaks in the Earth
the earth.
O humble, o depths
of rich and mysterious mud
o magnum mysterium
overturned with resounding
thud
and iron streaks richer than blood.

but crumble it shall
in many waters, rivers
the orbital, the oculus
the eye of all clarity
and all washed away
it is time
it is time
the Subject: washed away

into vapor
into air
into wind
the howling, the holy
the Subject lisps
and it is holy wind
holy flame
holy earth
holy water
wholly: the Universe
and nothing more
and nothing less
than its elements
than sound
Here follows the mystery of the four:
they are holy, inherently
and wholly, inherently pure.