if touch is all it can manage
the hand is poor.
I am the new face
of baby
doorstep.
when lightning
has emptiness
to burn
feed
the fasting
doll.
existence is the wrong inquiry. I was destroyed by an angel
for having
taste buds.
a pinkness has always gone on without me.
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some poems from the work, here:
[least]
there I was
lightweight, eyesore
baby satellite
and baby
drum
imagination’s
dull witness
my hair
prematurely
cat-torture
grey
my person
the length
of a sandbox
shovel
teeth
a tooth, a commandment
from the past
lives
of milk
[harrower]
it is easier now that I know I was never going to be a better person. if I once called poetry the grieving arm that ends in five short complaints, I am sorry. I watch my son lick the space on the table where he’ll put his cheek. it is not for me to believe he is a sign of warnings to come. the distant memory of his tongue is not mine to betray. I want to kiss you to the sound of god counting footfalls on a mountain path. for one, I have never been completely covered in bruises. also, I was in the spotlight when my mother was asked to describe a sponge. instead, she identified the break in the letter where a father changed pens and childhood as the longing of Eve.
[On suicide]
I was here long before you guessed my age
–
(our proverbial sister dons again the birthday suit of body language)
–
the dog won’t eat. might it know
we come from the family of sitting and dying?
it’s all in your head. the newborn we had on a mountaintop. the word it knew from memory. its hand that stuck to everything but the dog our dog ate. the cold our dog died from. the tent we called aquarium. that we filled with diapers. that was never full.
poetry and god share the same quick death.
I’m on what you’re on;
the eighth day of the world.
beneath the tethered astronaut of his dream
the impossible boy
misses
something small
the human ear, its recent
brush
with whale
/ does the demon
know
I’m the same
clue
memory
has nothing
it remembers
making
–
I’ll know an animal when god sees one
–
the guard
I slept with
gave me
you
–
pain, indicia, Amen
the boy
whose first
computer
was pain
they put something in his food
to make
him drink…
–
one animal
out of how
many
–
marries
–
to avoid
god
