(we  
              cradle—limbless—hungerly in violet  
           half-snow)
    barnacled to a ribcage of someone’s leftover   //god–  
my brother’s eyes        were spoonfuls of thistle  
    and so  
         he gave them

                          (    to mother  
               in a bell jar  
                         packed with apples that never rot)  
          

i said—dear—"shall we rot together?"  
he said  
               no  
but held my tail tighter than  
        the census did the mute  

            when they told us  
the white-ones  
       could out-breed  
       guilt  
       (our teeth were ripped  
         not sharpened)

       [oh darling look!] the moon  
ate itself out of order,  
  its halves spitting  
  bloodless milk on  
     sterilized clover  

—           the doctors wore hands like corkscrews  
               & unbirthed  
             any child that could  
            dream backwards—

       (i remembered)  
             chewing on a pipe-cleaner name  
        while a man with a cage of bees  
                instead of a face  
                        taught me the word for  
             acceptable.  

——

       there are songs that only come  
         when your tail’s caught  
in a trap meant for  
        your cousin’s ghost  
            (he cried into me  
               like a buckshot lullaby)  

and so i  
      curl.  
    (last ***** first).  
             hide my eyes  
                  in the cracks between

     <<he loved me with a scalpel made of lightning>>  
     <<i loved him with the parts they said to  
                            unsee>>  

and (       hush hush now       )  
              the roots are crawling into me—  
                       gentle, dumb  
                                 unchosen—

i  
       am  
           not  
              the mistake  
                       i was taught to  
                            worship.

i held my breath till it whistled  
   // like a kettle with a grudge //  
the moon’s face flickers—  
     too lemon to trust,  
     too god to look away from  

(you see it too, don’t you?)

   // the men in glass shoes  
   stomping on the grass  
   call it progress //  
& we clap like good teeth  
    like teeth that belong  

i woke up with hands full of gravel  
     (my spine still replaying  
     that tuesday when  
     the news kissed me on the mouth
     58 dead in Gaza  
     it tasted like iron)

       i’m not built for this century  
       i was born on mute  
       but everyone’s shouting  
       inside  
       their suits

someone’s building  
       a new god  
       in the basement  
       of a pharmacy  
            —says it kills the fake
            —says it’s making the world great again

my chest is full of alarms  
   but they only go off  
   when i sit still  

i tried to pray but  
    all the vowels were sold out  
    so i just hummed  
    till i forgot the tune  
    or the meaning  
    or the shape of  
            safe

          (what was that again?)  

    don’t look at me  
    i’m just another scarecrow  
    made of receipts  
    mouthing  
        please stop
        in perfect  
        passive  
        silence

fingers
                (they grow—damp
but not ripe)
  
         (damp)
the world leans into—flesh sways
           like chimes inside rotten skin

–hisscrack—snap!  
                        one
finger,      *******
falling           silent
beneath

                        murmur
            of the trench (deep    and wet
     in its hunger)                                                          ­              
            (flesh like flaking bread)
the fingers think about the soft ground
and wish they were    as light
                                as they
were not

if only it were not so
            slow

            left with—
                                the ache—   the hollow
where fingers once
     felt
        the grip of a rifle
                           (now forgotten)
       as they slowly,
    listlessly drop        
    towards the hungry earth

i
                am
      still here
    if only i can touch
                           the dirt  
            with    nubs that will never
            rise  
            up against
                   the gray

—drip
                           drip
        of life from
         where my
                (left) hand
should
                 hold a fist

but it is just
                       bone  
                             and bone
growing brittle
until the
                          whisper  
                         reaches to  
                           speak louder than silence
     and

                                       then

there is nothing
     but the hole inside
me left
              to remember me.

(for Sony WM-D6C, b.1982)

ohgod(yourplasticcradle    cradles  
        my earbones)  
            like moons hum-bent on  
                        bleeding symphony—

i unlatch  
       your orange foam silence  
                    (click)—
              and all my inside-shadows  
      reverse     direction—

    tell me again how  
  side B  
             aches so slowly.  

                (spool me, boy)

      —my tongue a wiretap  
         to your cassette soul  
      magneticmurmur-melting  
              where my pulse = ferroxide (™)

                           (does the chrome remember?)

         i DO.  
                    & you  
                  (your belly-button = play)  
               & me  
          (my softwound = record)

        in          synchro-   synchro-    
                    whispermode    you    
         ­              feed my  
              dirtystatic    

like  
a  
secret  
        n­ot meant for  
                        humans

(i         rewind myself  
        into your guts—)

                      stop.  
          [pause]     fingerrested  
        on your orange HALO dial  

             —is this lust or  
                         stereo calibration?

   (i **** in A440, you moan in dolbyC)

ohwalkman,  
    my little electric priest,  
               absolve me:  
                 i fastforward
                 into you  
            until          hiss.  

& we  

(                      eject  
      like lovers
                  never recorded  
                                but always  
                                              replayed).­

—the milk(drumbless, godless)  
             choral    thud          like  
          monday praying with a spoon  
                       &no cathedral but my  
                                self
                   (i) have  
                      knelt  

                                      in soft  
                cubism—

             /// carton: OPENED  
                     not-spilling but releasing
            the white-skin hymn  
                      onto  
         // me me me me  
                   (in the shape of a question)

and i    (statue of sudden use)  
           accept  
              the flood of      supermarket heaven  
                                 dumbly  
                         (milk never asked  
                           to baptize)

             & there is  
        no ******  
       just the thud  
           of liquid    on  heat
                and the floor’s  
                       slow  
                               applause

                 (yes—

                      even the tile watches  
                like it’s  
                        a painting of god
                     who got lost  
                         in the dairy aisle)

              & if you ask me  
       was it cold?  
               was it holy?  

i’ll say—

                       it was  
                         everything
                                 &  
                      nothing  
                        (at)  
                    once)

rocky raccoon
           cowboy in the
dust of somewhere / nowhere
                                        leaning
into a quicksilver sunset,
hands tied in twisted
ropecords, each knot
a secret no one knows

who
        pulls the trigger?
hands, trembling
                like the last bird
that fell from sky
                splayed wide—flesh    
and bone paint the prairie
                                    /flawed
with the stain of not being fast enough
but this
             is cowboy's life
no slowness in
                the click
of a gun /
                    but the final breath
          like wind
                           whistling
     through bonechamber
     between ribs—an afterthought.

        (the sheriff's a ghost, a thin rope
of smoke, and eyes are just
               holes drilled into glass)
      all /time/hangs
                 in moments—      
                                            lassoed
     by a mind that only
         remembers scars

rocky’s fingers curl, twitch
            (don't you move just
       let it happen, let it happen,
   you know it’ll fade—)
                       breath is a yellow
    fading light
         pushing past
                     skin /skin
                                       skin

the rope (too thick)
                  slices
        into a body that doesn't belong
anywhere,
                         just in that second
when he knew
                time bends and
                            falls
like dust back into dust

the howl of wind,
               the grind of
                          bullet
                (aimed but missed
because nothing
          sticks around long enough)
                       hangs in that
                   empty sky
                            and what was
                             done, undone.

if death speaks,
                         it's just
                       another song
that nobody
  quite understands  
                           yet
as the raccoon cowboy
               swings

                                         there

there was a boy(unbuttoned spine: tin)
             who sang bullets through teeth,        
             cough-stitched into boots—                      
             (mother would’ve                never                
                            known him in pieces)    

& you—  
             mustard! you crawling  
                    godless     yellowing yawn-    
             (you churchless warlock vapor  
             shuffling up his gullet  
                         like a borrowed hymn)        

he——  
             (let’s name him no one)              
             swallowed lungs like spoiled pears,      
             vines of cough wrapped around      
                                 his windpipe’s piano      
             & the keys stopped—one by one—        

click

     the music changed  

                                    —not into silence—    
             but into smoke  
                       a wordless opera:  
                 gasp.gasp.gasp.gone    

his eyes were  
             paperboats  
                       folding inward  

& the dirt applauded softly  
       in clouds of not-quiet  
          (a whistle wheezing past his ear)  
                 sergeant said: “keep walking”  
               but his knees said: “no more poems.”    

         (there are no metaphors in hell, just  
                 uniforms  
                         without skin)

:he dreamt once of  
                             lemons
     & a girl who     never      existed, probably—

he tried  
             to say goodbye  
    but found only  
               ash vowels &  
                        consonants with no  
                               consonance  

    (what’s the word for a throat  
               forgetting how to  
                            be?)    

his body un-wrote itself backwards      
             while the war kept  
                          typing    

                                      click
                        
                                            click
                                
             .                                                                                                                                              

             .                                                                                                                                

             .    

& the smoke  
             did not apologize.

a blue great shark  
(she)  
   wears muscle like    wet velvet

          a  
     slip   of fang’d prayer,  
  flitting      between glass  
       (between    god)  
              & the breathless hymn of vacuumed air

           I: was              not born to trap—
but you
          (brine-womb'd deity, slit of eye & icepick heart)

         how you undulate: (slower than sound faster than thought)
   the way a sigh    pulls threads from skin  
             & your dorsal dreams
      puncture my             museum bones

                        (curators watch—)  
with    chloroform-thirsting hands  
          & tongues that catalog moan  
                        in latin

                "carcharodon carcharias (desire in aqueous form)"  
                 whispered into tubes of   blue    gel-light

they                (we)  
    hunted her in sonatas  
            dissonant harpoons      
                            like broken violins
                      stitched with heartbeat wire

   a net of     unreason, &     peach-blind codes

           she swallowed our time  
                        whole

(yes)  
& spat it out      garnished with  
                         cumulus

                          (‘*** in bubblewrap’  
                             & I wept:  
                                   not for her  
                                       but because)  

you should see  
   the way her eye  
                 bends around corners  
       like velvet crawling up the leg of the void

       (can glass blush?)  
            mine does.

        the trap was not a cage  
                   (never a cage)
              it was a vowel—
   unspoken  
                    caught between  
         two mouths                  both too full of salt
                    to say "stay"

they filed her fins  
         under “****** geometry”  
          & mopped her breathless body with silk
               (I dream in that silk now)

   mythology in the gift shop:
                 $17.99 / laminated lust

    "do not tap the glass"—  
         the signs say
    (we tap anyway)  
         it sounds like  
                    a kiss

                          —or knuckles  
                                  trying to remember what “prayer” felt like  
                                   before museums

she moves inside
                   (me?)  
     (it?)  
             the tank of days
                            like a wound that doesn’t know  
                                     how to close

                   her movement becomes time:  
            an ellipse of pelvic   clocks  
                            hips made of tide

          (I counted the ******* by wave-height)

  a fin shadows my sleep
        & my sleep is
             /liquid/ & /open/
                   & /wanting/
                       & /neverthirsted enough/

the exhibit is called  
            “arousal in lowercase”

        the plaque reads:  
            “species suspended in ****** amnesia”  
        (but I know:  
                     she swims to remember)

her gills—
         fractal *******
                   (every inhale an alphabet of longing)  

          & oh how she  
                   spells me

a.museum.is.nothing  
                   but a lung that cannot  
                    exhale

   & when I press against the glass
             (mouth to pane)  
     she flicks a tail      —just enough—  
                       & I almost break

   the security guard has seen this before

“don’t worry,” he says  
    “it happens to everyone”

           (but I am not everyone)  
                I am the one who kissed her name  
                         into the salt

I was not born to trap  
       but born by the trap  
               untrapping me  
                  through her

         & now (she)  
       is the one watching  
            me
               in a tank

          mouth full of air
                     no words left
        just one endless  
             fin  
                   curl  
                         ~  
                            loop  
                          ­        of  
                                      shiver

      ­       & she swims  
                        through  
                       ­     (my glass heart)

a chipped porcelain doll
on a velvet swing
(one eye staring blankly
at the chandelier dust)

a whispered promise
in a room full of smoke
and cheap perfume
(a hand clutching a wilted rose)

chalk outlines of angels
on a dance floor sticky
with spilled champagne
(laughter echoing hollowly
like a broken metronome)

a bride in black lace
a groom with eyes like ice
(a ceremony performed
by a marionette priest)

the ***** wheezes a dirge
masquerading as a love song
(a chorus of whispers:
"cut the cake, cut the ties,
cut the cord to reality")

confetti of regrets
falling like ash
on a forgotten dream
(a photograph torn in half,
one piece smoldering)

a masquerade ball
where everyone wears
the same mask of happiness
(a single tear escapes,
tracing a path through the paint)

the clinking of glasses
a symphony of unspoken lies
(a toast to the future,
built on foundations of sand)

a heart-shaped box
filled with broken promises
and moth-eaten memories
(a child's drawing of a sun
hidden beneath the debris)

a silent scream
trapped in a gilded cage
(a bird beating its wings
against the bars of expectation)

a love story rewritten
with ink that bleeds
and words that twist
(a fairytale turned nightmare,
a happily ever after
left on the cutting room floor)

the scent of decay
mingling with the sweetness
of artificial flowers
(a wedding cake left to rot,
a symbol of love gone sour)

a chorus of disapproval
humming beneath the surface
of polite conversation
(a family portrait fractured,
the pieces scattered like leaves)

a single spotlight
illuminating the emptiness
of a hollow victory
(a crown of thorns,
a throne of lies)

a Whisper in the Dark:
"I write sins, not tragedies"
(but the ink stains the soul,
and the tragedies unfold
in the silence that follows).

deep \ inspace
Old man &/ withered
@in the center
lying.in a
crypt
suspended by nothing
stormy &/ coldstone / Morpheus
black.@in
deepempty \ inspace
dying.is a
person/ified
Old man sleeping
&: the movement
of molecules
is his @in a
deepemptydream \ inspace