Here deep light. Here deep light rising
from a sack of rusted whistles.
Rustles in the closet’s deep light.
A breath is a breach, cuts a lip
on deep light. Here bedpost tops
wicked in a rattle. Brassy
like an undergarment. Undone.
Such keeping tracks the eye.
New holes make a shirt perfect
for this deformity. The box cries from its corners,
the mold-bearded box.
Here air ages. Manners tip gently
in the lone. Deep something
thumps down and startles.
In the sleeping hour, the hour of disobedience.
The scavenge comes
unbidden. The tic, the squeak.
Here deep light beats back.
It comes in slats. It comes:
The hamper of efforts drooling knee socks.
A blue vase collects itself.
Here blank walls for walls
are not lit by deep light.
Not the bur on time tugged forth.
See a fray failing a shoelace.
Here deep light kept rolled like wrong carpet.
Deep light without aim. Dying
pockets of air. Each pocket
sent mewing at deep light.
ROOM
the floor is a storeroom
we keep each other
in the original packaging
I bought you a t-shirt with many kinds of breasts
I was desperate
something to say I care but not too much
The sun taxes me heartily
and my heart
lost in our angular house
for a place to leave things and never remember
I want to go to the movies I said
I was joking the hand on your knee
when we were alone was mine
I slit the folded paper: a book! of dust-
collecting the air mattress’s sotto voce
Am I using this bookshelf wrong?
that child safety cap fails
because you’re a grown woman stumped
to listen hard I ignore my own pulse
we all do
the delicate touch the stamen a stone
bookend shaped like a book
laundered the sun in a pile of feeling
up oneself absentmindedly on the phone
slouching over my weak core like protection
not a symptom
when I forget to say “I” you remind
the chickadee all puffed up the driveway
how much of our favorite non-stick pan
can we safely eat?
the tongue of the prayer book on the hardwood
a stack of change won’t do me ok then
the plastic frame worked all its scuffs
would have happened to the picture if
a stretch of the esophagus
what’s bloodied by the camera
what’s lost without a backup
plan for fire: a tangled rope of knots
and the anchor the doorknob’s inside doesn’t match
but fits
AT FLOWER, GRIPPING
Epistle, a yellow footprint on the hardwood. Open the fist, a
palm. A shake. Nine walnuts in a Ziploc baggie chatter. I'm
holding. I'm shaking. My photograph slinks down. Its frame.
Frayed like shoelace. Her lips purse. Every edge threatens a
fall. Even hems, even lips, even beauty's tight edge. I'm
pressing against. The factory atop my neck. The spill. One
flash surprises, the next captures. I freeze wide open. It's a
countdown. If thunder comes. Chewing comes easily. Yellow
my finger in the lily. It doesn't keep to itself. As well as it
should. Woman in bra between dogwoods. Red spills on her
head. Just a magazine ad. A dangle. A docile puppy in a nook.
A shoulder. I've fallen. Not my nook. Limpid with springtime
my angles. Shake, a greater tremble. Tremble my ginger veins.
A color wheel of fingers. Pointing, a basement before dawn.
The chimney a finger. What she wants. My eyes, then the
frame. Then my chest. A descent. A cracked cocoon. No
moth. Bulbs in the basement open. It takes forever. Petals
fall, her feet. Recover the ants all together. Light, then hand,
then wall. Thumb becomes a mandible. Touch my crushing
organ. My outreach. A small apple falls. The worm inside.
What eats. What's eaten. Two flowers kiss, wilt. The cyclist
falls. The garbage is a nest.
the floor is a storeroom
we keep each other
in the original packaging
I bought you a t-shirt with many kinds of breasts
I was desperate
something to say I care but not too much
The sun taxes me heartily
and my heart
lost in our angular house
for a place to leave things and never remember
I want to go to the movies I said
I was joking the hand on your knee
when we were alone was mine
I slit the folded paper: a book! of dust-
collecting the air mattress’s sotto voce
Am I using this bookshelf wrong?
that child safety cap fails
because you’re a grown woman stumped
to listen hard I ignore my own pulse
we all do
the delicate touch the stamen a stone
bookend shaped like a book
laundered the sun in a pile of feeling
up oneself absentmindedly on the phone
slouching over my weak core like protection
not a symptom
when I forget to say “I” you remind
the chickadee all puffed up the driveway
how much of our favorite non-stick pan
can we safely eat?
the tongue of the prayer book on the hardwood
a stack of change won’t do me ok then
the plastic frame worked all its scuffs
would have happened to the picture if
a stretch of the esophagus
what’s bloodied by the camera
what’s lost without a backup
plan for fire: a tangled rope of knots
and the anchor the doorknob’s inside doesn’t match
but fits
AT FLOWER, GRIPPING
Epistle, a yellow footprint on the hardwood. Open the fist, a
palm. A shake. Nine walnuts in a Ziploc baggie chatter. I'm
holding. I'm shaking. My photograph slinks down. Its frame.
Frayed like shoelace. Her lips purse. Every edge threatens a
fall. Even hems, even lips, even beauty's tight edge. I'm
pressing against. The factory atop my neck. The spill. One
flash surprises, the next captures. I freeze wide open. It's a
countdown. If thunder comes. Chewing comes easily. Yellow
my finger in the lily. It doesn't keep to itself. As well as it
should. Woman in bra between dogwoods. Red spills on her
head. Just a magazine ad. A dangle. A docile puppy in a nook.
A shoulder. I've fallen. Not my nook. Limpid with springtime
my angles. Shake, a greater tremble. Tremble my ginger veins.
A color wheel of fingers. Pointing, a basement before dawn.
The chimney a finger. What she wants. My eyes, then the
frame. Then my chest. A descent. A cracked cocoon. No
moth. Bulbs in the basement open. It takes forever. Petals
fall, her feet. Recover the ants all together. Light, then hand,
then wall. Thumb becomes a mandible. Touch my crushing
organ. My outreach. A small apple falls. The worm inside.
What eats. What's eaten. Two flowers kiss, wilt. The cyclist
falls. The garbage is a nest.
