i would, i would, if welcome i was, for they loathe me every one.




uncannily clear his eyes and ever
will be his hands a particular
quick clean

sadness which speaks through strings

and it is greatly
and much
as it was

reeds
yellowing scum
wool yarn tied
at the pond

sealed now with hardened wax
trapped
in sap

theirs are years dissolved as
honey hers in a dust blue house his

in what is his

sanctified enough for
both of them torn
far from candle and a
ouija board

wicked thoughtless faith
one pays in pain

now smell the struck
match measure
the heft of the hematite

turn the looming
latch crawl into the night

crouch

beneath blankets a petrified spider

stare in terror at your chest with
maddening mistrust
do not expect

that it will reign gently just and
such and such

heed scrawl on an
apple's parchment skin
browning bloody curl

do not defect

not for the world

a poison blows from the
bellows leaned
lazy at hearth
 
below the cupboard of
liquors ageless and

acid with sorrow

Canada

To little
girls they attempt to teach grace from
an early age. Lips sticky with the wax of
fake orgasms. Roses upon completion of display.

If your bedroom
is your mind, do you mind?
If you mind, mayhap you
should rearrange.

On application of the hypothetical
law, mine is a Persian rug of
mockingbirds, seven bared
breasts. Memories

are flecks of silver and
light caught in a lens,
only the past is material,
tell me where it all went wrong.

Tell the heap of flannel in my chest
how it could win Helena. Whisper
to my tires that they will reach Canada.
I fell into a love for her.

If my bedroom is my mind:
(I note the absence of Helena.
Tentatively, surely,
she must appear.)

For now I nurse a nausea,
track a pulse in my thigh.
Rain came. An acid bramble
bloomed in my stomach.

I dreamt of
free fall.
Death was imminent until
the river.

Of little
girls little is expected. Sex speaks
a language in time.
They find they are fluent.

Tell them where it all went wrong.
Whisper to their tires
that they will
reach Canada.