for Katherine Osborne
falsehoods
I was sure
to say
to a horse, things like
god is sending
his middle
child
to collect
a drop
of my daughter’s
blood, or
it’s a sin
to be
1989, things I felt
I owed
the horse, that were
horse-like
in their stillness, that went
nowhere
when nowhere
was
come fly
or flat
earth
the dark’s
bitch
death
with its collection
of misfit
bookends
has an ear
for birth
if birth
is speaking
on the loss
of an empty
headed
photo
–
is god going to fuck it up
the addict’s
spotless
campsite
yes
in the dream
I hadn’t been
using
a ghost
in love
with a paintbrush
this ankle
not
from memory
when father heard
it said
that god
reads only
to children
he began
talking to himself
behind
his mother’s
back.
a poor person
sad
about pillows, a stick person
sad
for a match.
the child you won’t have because the child hates surprises. the story, your mother’s, of the pillow that struggled like an owl. the werewolf, humble, and afraid of clowns. the ramblings of a newborn. the twin boys of Cain.
reading from earth is part earth and there’s a hole in the sound I made you from:
~
book and book preview, here:
~
poems, from, book:
[male sequence]
in one room
a light is on
in another
off
–
I live with my parents
hymn to mouth
delivering
fluency
by hand
to the language
of vicarious
passage
–
gender peasantry
is about
to become
a thing
–
mom, dad
I don’t think there’s world enough left to be quiet in
–
my bad hearing
I take it
with me
[notes on the assault]
I always ask my brother which eye he wants to open in the dark. I have a foreign notion of how to be homesick. I have a son whose body won’t tell him he’s well. I see the face of god as an idea gods use to evoke intellect. as a girl, the man of few words found himself surrounded by things she could describe.
[cripplings]
touch is a sign of weakness. my father opens his mouth after speaking. meanwhile, miracle, it occurs to me in separate car accidents that bringing me to my son in god is less an undertaking than that of arming the man who transports a stopwatch to a cemetery. do we live the lives of those experimenting? beauty is not alone. suppose it knows.
[vale]
in the house that doesn’t go to heaven
my father lives
the life
of a stowaway.
tell the tornado how poverty has too many gods.
/ the walls have ears. I have
my collection
of roaches
wrapped in foil / someone
will take my word
what firewood
was.
for Franz Wright, late
~
the hand
I don’t wash
has never
been touched.
is the last
woman
on earth
pregnant?
the children are burning
yet
my son
is not enough
to fill
your nose.
I saw god
he was crawling
away
from a clean
diaper. it would be my only regret
to miss
the encore
of death.
I saw today a moth so large it could probably replace what it was your dad hit with his car. the size of things lately has me putting babies on the shoulders of those behind this groundhog-eating craze. I’ve moved back in with mother. I’m waiting for her to know. high note: they’re okay, my tormentors, they’re not surprised I’m ugly. my brother still believes his tongue is proof he was once made to swallow an extension cord. because of what happened, I’ll never be different.
it is not my job
anymore
to keep
the television
quiet, give
bunny ears
to someone
bleeding
–
take your time, snake, this egg
will return
your belly
mark my words, wrist
–
with god
as my impression
mark
insomnia
–
the mood was very bloody, the mother invented
sex
to scare
the kids, the mother
drank
cologne
–
I keep having the same baby
it comes
with a dream
kingsoftrain 