Swim (rather)

“Praying over water changes the shape
of the molecules. Like love water is hexagonal or
giving thanks is an octagon, or some bullshit like that,
I’m not really sure…”
striking as this statement is (or could be depending
on your personal level of evangelicalism) perhaps --
more so, is the godlessness
with which she spits it out—bing cherries, knots of blonde hair.
and I wonder what I’m supposed to do with that
kind of information.

“Makes me want to build a boat,” she interrupts.

Hush, Siren.

Fourth from the left, one right of center
there is a gap.
It is the intimacy
of this awareness
that I have before
mistaken as sacred,
as ancient.

Teeth, moon, bone
(recurring themes).

I know this because
I’ve been close enough to see it.
and I know this because
I’ve been close enough to hide it
hush, siren .
(or avoidance)
don't smile.

Facts are more beautiful (I feel less guilty?) as poems

In the thirteenth century
it was customary
to be quartered
when convicted of high treason.

Hanged, until death was near certain
and then, each limb
bound to the tethers of a horse
were
at once, pulled apart
with the crack of a whip.

“Although, for decency purposes
women were burned at the stake.”

Remember, you will die (watchface, slow ticking)

Poetics masked as years (beautiful, broken men)
--weeks old.
From you, I’ve cut fingertips
Pulled teeth
Lit fire, and of course…
walked shamefully from cinders.
I’ve called you “a lover…once”
A dozen or more times.
You as lover is he as lover
But she as lover is three weeks as
secret
--coded numbers, thousand mile stare,
crying in the shower lover.

and you said, “a lot. A lot a lot.” And
I wonder the half life
of that measurement. How quickly your
world must orbit the sun.

So Rare, Her Smile

When I get home,
I will hide the guns.
(at this point the person becomes dependent
on a romantic interest due to the slightest bit of attention
from the person they are attracted to.)

My lover--
a
be damned and die young,
James Dean leftover
put-a-bird-on-it sort of soul--
used to talk for hours (four hours) about my teeth.
To anyone who would listen.

A girl in San Francisco told
me so.

This poem is not
about teeth.
(the anxious phase is considered the relational turning point)
It is about
running away.

So easy

It would be easy to begin with what I want,
Easy, asking you to bend
come on over, touch, little darling
the stars are waiting for you to make moves
they’ve planted themselves right above your collar bone
they watch as you
wander, and beg the earth.
They watch as you tip-toe your way
around the words, the feelings, the conversation
that begins, “I want to…”
as you settle for the story
that ends with
the patterned drops of your sweat
oh no, tears. I want to break
it in my hands.
Silly girl, do not cry.
Rest. Sit still.
Wait until your chest
does not grow so burdened with each breath
You want me to tell you something?
I have many secrets. They all begin
“I want”
and end “wild and unruly.”

The last one: it is not for you.

I have stabbed someone.
Just once. Not a dead person.
It was not satisfying at all.
Not what I intended.
There were many surprises.
For instance, the initial severance of skin
makes an awful sound, and almost stopped me
but, magnetic, the blade
searched for vital organs tunneled deeper
for me, it isn’t over
and she didn’t stop me. Nevermind.
No, she simply watched
as I removed each rib
one
at
a
time.
She was so fucking beautiful.
In her open, black-red filled space.
The rising chest and blinking eyes.
The weeping
The plunge
The digging
I am not now, nor have I ever been a surgeon
but I was able--abruptly
finally to quiet the madness
and despite the embarrassment (stunning
and so foolish)
hold closely the slowing of the beat.
It lives on when you’re not in the room.
In retrospect, I have not stabbed anyone.
It was more of a dissection,
more of an unveiling
more a breaking apart of
all things right and human and full.
There were no reparations
sutures, stitching up
and for all of the cutting
all of the ripping
all of the intention
my scar is rather small and
will be well hidden.

Onset, Days 1-4 (I've never written about my illness)

The illness is not something I can separate
deconstruct; no meaning to
summer fever—platelet counts; body against
muscle consuming;
self. A lover once called it "your condition"
I had forgotten it was mine alone.

The last thing I remember
before the peripheral blindness that comes with
rising heat—one, two bites; cantaloupe
(I don’t even like melons)
cracked swallow; burst filters
sandy filth
ankles.

I'm sure I collapsed. At home?
It must have been after two days
that my father had to lift me,
bones rubber, snapping
swooping cradle; upward
now
a small child; come on baby girl.

Tongue lifted
arms cuffed
She’s choking.
The nurses seemed calmer than one would expect
when watching
a pretty little thing burn
from the inside out.

Unable, even, to hear music

Orion, put your bow down.
You haven’t a home to protect
Nor an army to defend.
What are you hunting anyway?
There is nothing but emptiness about you.
You’ve run away
again, hidden among darkness.
Unable to tell if the
lights below you are
the stars of another galaxy
or the upward turned eyes
of brokenhearted lovers.

I am not a scientist, pretty baby

And all the constellations, shine down for us to see
And if you don't believe me, just put your hands on me

Don’t quote me on the physics of it all,
but I know the lightweight innards
the crackling, fibrous bones
of a dove, or a bird like it, make for
an easier flight, than say, perhaps, you or I.
That doesn’t mean it’s impossible
blue sky world.
I’m content to befriend
the pattern of lines spinning about your ceiling.
Eyes closed
as you drift conspicuously back toward
the weight of the floor.

Irregardless

The hollowed out insides of a pretty
little thing like yourself
as permanent to me as the moments
unprompted, you smile.

She wanted to be a cowboy, an ode to Lisa Loeb's "Falling in Love"

See, you’re just like everyone else
temporary
and
at once inevitable.
Let me give you an example…

Finding a baby bird
broken on the sidewalk
is very different
than watching one tumble from the nest.
Both still referred to as
fledglings.

Stones

When Virginia Woolf sank herself in a river,
no one blamed the stones.

Today, I wonder how she chose which
rock(s) to stack inside her pockets.
I want weight,
balanced, consuming my palm
anxious
to meet the crest of river water--
I’m certain she was less particular.
Stack, baby girl, stack
how intimate the artist and death.

Most days I want to leave

A morning: wandering through churches--
light, through Chagall’s stained glass
tinting your face different shades
of adoration. There is a red scene
coming, blush.

An afternoon: The Bride
Stripped Bare
by Her Bachelors,
Even. Try to look away.
That reaction, what is it?
Tell me more.

Twenty dollars: we’re poets
baby, your money is worthless.

Some days I want to save her

“I would like to stab someone,” she muses.
“Just once. Maybe a dead person.”
And
if not for the turn
the pull
if not for the lift
or the slide
if not for the
empty
resting, sadness
rounding out
the sharp
air (exhale)
I might feel
Fear.

Little Moon

Orbits are the result of a perfect balance between the forward motion of a body in space and the pull of gravity on it from another body in space.


Orbit, little moon
the million tiny breaths
of her sweeping exhalation
her body bending
from crown
to blade, and be still, against the quiet
pull of her sigh.

Day 7, 40 minutes, 40 poems, 40 days

This is a true statement

I watched a man die today,
deliberately and by choice.
No longer
able to gauge
how heavy my breaths
had become,
I needed to know
how perfectly
still the chest becomes
when all the beautiful
things are gone.

Day 5, 40 minutes, 40 poems, 40 days

What My Dog Must Have Known at the Moment of His Death in Five Lines or Less

My girl--
muddy, like the creek bed
like walks through wilted hay fields
and at last
salt.

Day 4, 40 minutes, 40 poems, 40 days

Form Exercise

Day 3, 40 minutes, 40 poems, 40 days

The Benefits of Godlessness

Prayers will not matter when the world ends
—sun swallows his planets; earth turns herself inside out—
we cannot be transcendent
ushering in the forgiven.

How beautiful, the countless bones
decorated particles, diamonds
created
to tempt the keepers
or destroyed,
to absolve our sins
against the gods
we once called stars.

Day 2, 40 minutes, 40 poems, 40 days

The Poet's Wife (Ars Poetica)

She wonders, some mornings
as she does now
if today he will
find the words to sculpt her
slight hips on the page. Hopes
he will notice
the lyrical rise and fall of breasts
and the crescendo of her exhalation.

He struggles most days,
to find words enough
to accurately describe a fern, let alone
convey the godliness of
her hip
pressed against his side or
the breast,
unassuming in its curve, rising.

Day 1, 40 minutes, 40 poems, 40 days

“No more dreaming of the day, as if death itself was undone. “

I always imagine my death in a bathtub.
It seems only fitting that
As I entered with beats and breaths
I should leave in deep gulps—water and lung
Counting backward to zero.