reflecting on a stillborn thing

Did I laugh too much?

When I cracked my mouth

did I deflate?

Did checking my phone 

suck hours from our entanglement,

each lightning glance

one conversation less? 

Did my electricity 

freeze our golden sand to glass?

Was it the riptide?

And who was the shore,

and who drowned?

People eat bean sprouts,

bamboo shoots, fiddleheads,

you know. 

They’re bitter, but 

people eat beginnings. 

Did some snake

swallow the egg I kept

nested in my breast pocket?

Will I find a skin,

shed, under my bed?

How far did our continents drift?

I wonder if anyone felt

the earth quake, the tiny shocks before. 

It might have been the wind,

the fingers I ruffled through your hair,

that drove you underground.

Could I have stopped it blowing?

Could I have snuffed the sun

like a smoking candle?

How much was me,

and how much was entropy?

Red Bell Pepper

My lover lurks in the shade of the refrigerator,

stained-apron forgetful, worshipping 

over the cutting board

and she hums as she goes, 

coaxing water to a frantic leaping 

boil. she cooks

by power of suggestion, breaking 

angel hair with a whisper of hands.

it slithers, snapped, into the pot,

unresisting, and

wilts.

She tears ripe lettuce until it weeps green,

leeks, she severs, potatoes

she skins, gouges their rooting eyes

pours vinegar into new wounds

and sings with the radio, laughing

 she leaves the red bell pepper for last.

one stroke cleaves it down the middle, and carefully

she partitions a half into long, curving bows

for the salad. the other half is hers. 

she starts with a ventricle, crushing

its bitter flesh. it leaks watered red 

down the bow of her mouth. 

steam curls around her face, still stained,

when she strains the pasta.

hey reaper man

Hey, Reaper Man.

I saw you at the bar last night.

You were spilling

a ritual all over the dance floor,

bloody Mary 

in one hand,

bloody Jo in the other.

They were giggling

and stumbling over your

sharp

leather shoes.

We shared a glance, you

and me. You remember.

You remember everything.

You

grinned.

You had a bone-

white set of

teeth that glowed

indigo in the blacklight.

I checked the paper this morning 

for a bloody Mary and a bloodied Jo, and

I didn't find them. I bet

they’re just now waking up, wondering

who it was they danced with.

Why his hands were so cold.

You never offered to dance with 

me. If you had, I think

I would have taken you

to bed.

Loneliness: A Cover

Why should I rewrite the lonely-hearted blues?

Some weaver-widow-woman used up all the indigo dye,

and there’s 12 bars downtown in 12 chromatic hues.

Some blind painter found me, and he showed me why

‘A Poet Feels Alone’ ‘s a poor excuse for news.

He used to lay in bed and watch his portraits dry.

He told me that he used to have a muse—

a Navy boy who wouldn’t let the painter die,

as if one life was all that he could bear to lose.

So who am I to sing the lonely-hearted blues?

Explorer

How about this:

I'm an explorer.

The imperial kind,

wandering down native tributaries-

razor-keeled

canoe slicing through the water

so that it pulls back to either side in a wake

with muddy red wet in between

welts rising from mosquitoes,

biting flies, nettles, thorns

ankles twisting on grasping roots,

slashing at vines, veins

popping.

By the time I’ve bled a trail

into the forest, sunset

casts red over the limbs of trees.

A Heavenly Body

She was my sun &

I panted in the shade &

burnt.

She was my moon &

I shook my powdered wings &

fell.

She was my stars &

under her was the smallest I have ever

been.

She had a heavenly body &

no regard for

dirt.

Porcelain

Every time I wake up, I’m in a different bathtub. 

Usually, I wait to open my eyes until someone knocks, or rips open the curtain and screams. I could count tiles, trace cracks in milky plaster ceilings, but truth be told, bathrooms are pretty much interchangeable. Most of them are chalky, caulky white, with accents in dull burgundy or clay. The tan-and-blue ones have vases full of sand and seashells, but you can only pretend the swish of rattling, rusting pipes is the sea for so long.

Sometimes the tubs have claws that dig into cold linoleum, like levitant spirits that drift up through ceiling cracks in the absence of tenacious fingers. Sometimes they are bolted down, or moulded out of walls. I don’t think I have a favorite, but I do love the ones that spout water like orcas, and the ones with tiny caves for baby-blue soap to curl up and sleep in.

Toilets are all the same. They are nondescript and unmarked white, as if they are afraid of being picked out of a lineup. Theirs is a secret shame. I don’t look at them if I can help it. 

Sinks are gouges, pockmarks, surgical scars missing tissue, grotesque flaws in the plane of counters. They’re metal at the bottom, but that doesn’t matter. They’re still porcelain, breakable and broken. Sometimes the sound of them humming water from their noses wakes me. I lie very still and pray the washer is clean but for the hands. 

I reach for air vents, and I float right into them.

Ode On Sidewalk Debris

Tide pod 

Liquid amethyst blood

Leaking from fragrant 

Heart.

Bright olivine bottleglass,

Smashed. Soil-red

Paper, soaked in rain.

Starling feather oil

Blooming on asphalt

And brown sparrows picking

At at brown crumbs

And skittle wrappers.

Riotous refuse! Keep your eyes

Earthward, and find 

Truth. All you know is ground

Into the earth.

Endureth All Things

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13:7

If I had realized at the beginning

how many bones compassion breaks,

how it pulls ligaments and tendons apart, 

snaps fibers like shoddy thread,

grinds joints dry with its gold weight

If I had known at the beginning,

how agape spills lymph,

drinks bile, 

leaks plasma

from the holes it bores in strong things,

drinks them dry and shaking,

spends them in the sand

If I had believed at the beginning

that love lives in the ache 

of oxygen-starved muscles,

the creak and drag of arthritic fingers,

the grimace of pain when a scar breaks open,

the numbness of weight 

on decade-old shoulders

Maybe, I would have shuddered

and braced myself for the first

I love you

Temple

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? 

1 Corinthians 6:19

Do you not know?

There is fire in you,

hearthfire and candleflame and

sacrifice. You are a temple,

many-splendored temple—

your ribs are girders,

your thighs are foundations,

the crown of your head is a golden dome,

golden like the sun—but blue,

the jubilant blue of skyandwater,

is no less holy. Do not fear

to burn the darkness out of your hair.

Skies are painted many colors, 

And crowns are pierced with many jewels.

There is smoke in you, 

as follows from

the holocaust, 

burnt offering,

sweet, wild

incense between your fingers.

Your body is a temple. 

Do not forget

that temples eat fire,

and the breath of gods 

burns. Breath of life,

the hot wind off of the desert.

Purification seeps into walls,

Blackens metals, heaps ashes.

Temples need not shine. 

You will tarnish, and cracks

will sneak into your walls, 

and still you will be holy.

Your body, do you not know,

is holy ground. It is the burning bush,

the terrible perfection

of cracked stone and windblown sand.

Take off your shoes,

who enter here. 

Press your bare feet

into grass that sprouts after rain,

feel the coolness of the river. 

Tread unshod and light, free,

and do not be afraid to dance. 

Your body is set 

on a high place. It rests

upon mountains. You are lofty

in your temple-body—

look out over the valley

and do not be afraid.

Your temple, a body filled,

and pierced, and torn, and covered,

your temple is filled with glory.

Fill it with beauty also. Hang tapestries,

paint murals on your skin,

break open new windows.

Dye your altar cloths,

dye them pink and scarlet,

edge them in lace,

spread carpets soft for the knees of the faithful.

Do you not know?

Your body is a temple, and the divine

within is consuming thing, 

a consummation. 

Let it consume.

Your temple is wild,

a saturnalia held inside your skin,

a pillar of fire. 

No temple that has seen

the face of the divine 

will remain unscathed. 

Revel in your brokenness,

your colors and your craters,

profanities etched in sacred plaster.

Your temple is lit up inside,

your temple is burning away,

your temple will be gone, soon.

Therefore, renovate. Destroy,

and rebuild.