Today I bought new boots because

my feet hurt so badly

I limped so I was sent out

hobbling to the doctor and

leaning on an upturned umbrella

he said:

"it's sad you are young and

promising with unfortunate genetics

you should quit standing

and stop buying things secondhand."



I bought new shoes they are

hard and unforgiving and shiny

I hate them

as a rule I only own objects that have learned to hold

the bodies of other people

while I rest assured my imprint and damage

are secondary

I was never there or I was

a small step taken before laying in a heap

and waiting to disintegrate.



But those new shoes stand

expectant and hollow next to their box

I forgot they come in a casket

and grin proud of their youth

I am going to return them.

This is blind trust to

hold someone like snow

doomed to surface tension

a solid existence

and a tool suit



**** a paper arm

I could burn it like that

lavender note

about two people with the same name

too bad

you can see my veins

they're purple too



I will slip apart quickly

for this brief assembly

each cell loves the other while it's permitted



Six Magnetic Pins in a tight embrace

I'll see six refractions

on that salty neck wet with

yawning tears



If I'm the soft powdered moon held

high by six rungs

I am you under the weight of your own skin

and you are held tightly by

the world under its gravity

which is held tightly by

space under the weight of the sun

Through thin lines and a brief precarity

two ends of the same rope

silently knotting while

waiting patiently for warm balance

somewhere greenly glowing between your tendons



So the waltz was intricate

two-part braiding

under heavy magnet weight

an Atlas of Repulsion

breathing old air into

the same new mouth

with compression potential

we acrobats contorted into a last

tied hold



Until

Quick Unspinning

like acid whiplash

you dropped me from that high globe

just as I was preparing the ladder

quip bit the silk sliver

easy in to piece like butter

mar the grease or appease

silver slip wishes

a sharp slice with precision

seldom spares a botch or clot

over on its chopping block

My friend's mom said I glow anemic

look, I don't like my moon-face either

but at least I'm not

Relentlessly burning immortal

at least I know

I'm paper or wax or something

fading slowly instead of

all at once.



I feel dizzy weaving in and out of

leather hands

and I promised myself I would never let my

tongue crack

(it is but)

I can't really help that

or being told

by people who say I look classic

they can see what I'll look like

in 35 years

also boiling

while my rouged face drops to the floor.



If I squint I can see my cheekbones

they make me look pretty

because they remind me of my skeleton

who is waiting nicely like a guest

white on the porch at midnight

I'll let it in

(when I'm ready).

Sick shovels chip away the mantle

and arrange archaic debris of

predecessors heavy on the shoulders

of family already creaking and clinging

sticky with their own tears and no one else's.



I know that sound they make like

church bells or sharp jabs all familiar to

those who have dug desperately

for relics or relief from dusty ache of fading

I've been the archeologist



He was too, he framed old bones

again in red dirt that touched the warm oily sun

now long covered and made rotted molten

to think of resting voice or heavy steps there

now foreign sediment a young terrible fossil



There have been some who try to reach the core

and some who are lowered in.