feel a woman, ate up
by sea

all the color
in her face

bled into ocean
free

swimming
untraced

pink
for rosy cheeks

and lilac
for painted nails

and her husband, raising sails
while she shrieked

how she shrieked
for shoreline
how she screamed
for his eye

"look at me."

mist stretches along the tops of trees, bosoming coldly over the brush
like the bodies of lost souls

like the words that hang from the page
withering, wilting ghosts
that threaten to slither from their place
wobbling wraiths I'd traced;
my heart's yearn to spit its hopeless thought -
reduced to something like child scribbles,
like nonsense I'd etched with my non-dominant hand
with blithering, faltering pen

I swing like the moon between two phases
sure, unsure
how long will I sit here?
a few lunations scramble past my head
words on words on words
blend together in sequences of lines
that I no longer recognize
as anything close to cognizant

I read the lines again
dismantle, disassemble them
eyeful work;
like science sates its spirit
by prodding at the seams of the earth
no fear that it may unfix
the stars that string like stanchions in the sky
heaven's performance toppling

my words collapse before me
nothing more than a brief hiccup
before their quiet, noon oblivion
miscalculated blots that do nothing but spoil the purity of the page
I crinkle it, toss it behind me
grab a new sliver of square
uncrinkled, uninked
I stare into the ceaseless white
brinking, unblinking alabaster
immaculate - the center of nonexistence
so foreigning; a burgeoning sense of casuality within me

I remind myself that it is a piece of paper

but do I dare soil it?
ebony tweens from the pen as I press
callous deflowering;
assaulting the page with senseless drivel I will realise
five to ten seconds after I write it that I hate

‍  ‍    ‍    ‍    ‍    ‍
the sea-tide sprays

like his thoughts

the wood splinters

gives way to gavel



the city emerges;

a beacon before me

strip malls and shops

adorned with their little bells;

bedizened with lights

every corner, every crease

here, in winter
I see



the ice melts

with his mind, in its time

his blood runs thick

as the skin it sits under



this heat will scorn whatever callous I sport,

so

the sun will burn whatever grudge off of me,

so


if you come home...

a blip
on a blight
on a mote
on a microbe
a sea of stardust
black silk
and white rope

hung
above her head
passing, people start to pour in
and limbs hang like they're dead
tingle with their poor sin

a bead
on a brow
on a cry
quiet mystery
a blip
on a blight
on a brick
in the wall

phase
the night, the numbs a haze
the sounds, the stars that scattered
how far she'd had the ache
how slight, the rings of saturn

a haste
on a heart
to calm it down
a push, a pull
to soak it in
the art around

so small, then
regret sets in
the song in the room
and the ghost let in
long that one would leave it soon

a pulse,
a parse
and a hubric hope
tense,
tingling, the sinking *****
sinks into
the stars around

the ticking
of my orrery
douse the sun
its rise and clutch
exscind what skin it might have touched

like clockwork,
I whisper

like clockwork
as Jupiter bumps the earth
the orrery whispers in its corner

like clockwork, ticking

my soul's in the city
somewhere,
patiently sitting

I bite my tongue
hold my breath
let the anger fill my lungs instead
like anodyne inside my chest

a sea of concrete
somewhere,
singing, seeking

conjuring
and conjuring
but the moon wakes to sleep
and not much else
creeps
between the sun and the hour hand

surely

I'm buried
in the barathrum
locusts, wild honey
where the clove
is over-running

somewhere,
long removed from me
a wraith, a ghost
above the wings
my soul sits
and sings
and sleeps

like clockwork
I wait for its return
a heartless husk in the ground
the ticking
as my orrery sounds

my lover
fashioned from old dirt
and bones buried
broken and brittle in the earth
painted so sparingly in gold
she is chipping all of such a thin coat
my lover
would start to wither, watered wine
I take her pains, tithing my time
her scent as sycamore and pine
to cut the wormwood from her twine
I love her
I will be with her, if it's fine

I go limp in his arms
just to see if he can catch me

"don't forget about the stars, don't forget about the stars"

they are beautiful, and all over
but the darkness between them is such a scary thing

post meridiem,
sleep

schemata dream

and
ante meridiem

public transit
seethes

''de anima"
but
on soul
you do not have

psychotic

numbers
in everything

you are not living,

thing.

an abstract piece

the sour smell

of ocean decay;

chartreuse waves

vermilion sky;

light breaks

and earth, untamed

hide,

ocean's undertow

and sleep, stagnant flame

against snow sunset
plow the land
freshen up
with ***** hands

cold cassette
sings along
to dial-up net
breathing strong

against scratched windows
moonlight dance
and paces slow
to fretful finance

He was asking for an accident

And he had asked for it so long

It was quiet conspicuity
It was a whisper of a song
And whether mid-day,
night, or morning

I could have sworn that it had gone

"Let me in, let me in"

I could have sworn that it had gone

"Let it out, let it out"

I could have sworn that it had gone

"Pick it up, put it down,"

It was frightened ambiguity
Dandelioning along
It was frozen in the postal-state
It was a letter never drawn

Tremors halving contiguity
Whatever I'd like, whatever I'd like

Tomorrow towards the turnpike's tongue

It was quiet, but I knew it wasn't right

and with each step she takes, she shrinks

frighten her
feel her
from the edge of the web

from the trees spitting sap
into the hardest to wash places
of your psalm scribing nails

fall into the murmur
if it is the heart
"I am, I am, I am," as Plath put it
beep, beep, beep, goes the machine
like "you are, you are, you are"


you are
⠀

a feeling I can't name

as he exits, excellently;
as the ball rolls
and the moon hugs the tide

hand
hesitantly on the helve

the wonderment,
the idiot

who he's exchanged a few words with

from behind the dotted line
that I envision

the upswing of human fear
and tending to be naked in it

if one thing
if it was all my heart had really thought for,
aside from to be useful, in my adult years

do I get, also, for it to end well?

the way envisioned
to climb over the dotted line

the wonderment
at him
the idiot sits
twiddles her thumbs

sinks in and in

I must be a child
waiting to be pulled to the air

if it will never feel quite right to want
I'll wait until I am wanted

and if the moment never comes,

with a broken jaw
and a broken spine

he tries to tame the gnawing
unhinged, colubrine

he claws for claret, cherry blood
sloughs his futile, far loves
sinks his teeth into the silt mud

swiping bugs from widows web-spin
perhaps I'd never reach my anthesis
perhaps I'd never shed my dead skin

like he crawls along the leaves
all the rest crawls from his sleep
in late hours
he thinks of me

of all the men she's ever held
and will hold

and I sit in the barrel of her 45

she's all heart and stomach
I'm instinct and claw

hot filament
a wire, a spark

a breathing space where she can't breathe

I ask the summer breeze

that seeps around

my cold, uncaring cracks

to sit with me

stay in its place

to keep directing the dance

of busy, buzzing bees

to kiss me every year,

staying rightfully in its season

but to write me of warmth over the holiday

I ask it that its honey-drenched, honeysuckle-sweetened air

would be my valentine