Sleep Disemboweled in This Forest
Halogen lights zigzagged the canopy like leaking stars. Nothing was
dark enough. Lightening bugs lined the twig floor, the origami-leaf
ants. Even my owl-nest glowed, caught in the experiment.
They installed new lighting like they took back the birthright they
think is theirs. I stayed awake for 47 hours and now my pinky is
someone else's pity. I couldn’t recover the history of a single
fawn.
Even without shadow it fed in the corner like a novel or hospital gown.
A sandbox overturned with a kick. A handful of poppies and their
headless row. So my eyes flitted to their hub, 100 prongs at the tip of
a giant extension cord. And then the bucket of water you keep at your
feet. What is worse than a half-gesture.
I misunderstood that there was an external. Those who cause damage
mistake the external for an object, or two lungs surrounded by a human
they do not breathe for. My tidalpool, my blanket cooling on the floor,
the flat ring of a wintry planet I rest on my collar. My inner blink,
your outer knee.
You must complete your gestures. I'm the width of the holes in your
stocking. And then a boom that brings that half-light back. Some
breathing slows with relief or sleep or a better tactic. To blot out an
unflinchable face, sadder than pity.
Organs of speech, a stranger potential. Between animal grace and the color photograph. Thank you, stomach-heart.
You’ve Handed Me Something That Will Never Dry
I’ve lived in almost every room
but it’s
hard to
match the
color
of your missing piece.
The barn door is a table I read over.
My undercoat a cluster of photographs
I kept from the fire.
If I took the museum’s view you would be wood-
cut & staring back.
Scrape of a vintage empire wax & cola.
How do I explain hiding in the lumberyard
cloth on your knuckles.
Your chemical form rises in the photograph.
I’ve just started mine. Tree-turret.
Radio germs on a stack of cracked tires.
Were you stained for the same reason.
Here is the beauty of using wax
And
you,
finished of any age.
My barn
glows not
on fire not
of glass.