To gather the evening’s cool, the shutters are left open. All at once the cicadas, dumbstruck, cease. She turns toward the shore, senses a squall in the offing. In anticipation of a kiss, she swallows; touches her tongue to her lips. The moon sheds light as transparent as a threadbare dress.
Winter 2016 Season
Work from the Winter 2016 Season of concīs.
Relax
The sign in the window says Ladies dresses 70% off. Can’t be sure whether that’s an invitation or a warning. Like God, the cause of the incident is still under investigation.
Stop me if you’ve heard this story so many times, you can’t remember what it’s about. Administratively speaking, you’d do the same, if I were in your shoes. With the deluxe nightmare, it comes at no extra cost, excluding normal wear and tear.
I may look like I’m hiding in a drowning, but I’ve learned you can have an excellent memory, if you don’t spend all your time trying to forget. It’s as easy as an electrocution in standing water.
It’s such a beautiful evening tonight, don’t you think? The breeze, cool and slow, your eyes, dark dead stars. With my hand in yours, I feel relaxed as an ax lounging in blue sequined moonlight. The throat of the moon pulled out like a drawer.
five fragments
from selections
§XXV: |
an encomium for |
§XX: |
i met u on the coast & u vibrated elegiac couplets for a monaulous like |
§XXIX: |
a pall of spondees & trochees |
§LXIII: |
witnesses stand the coast breaking texts healthy growth blow the foam ribs |
§III: |
o, the tips of the & when you look back |
The Hands of a Samurai
My father’s hands held many things. Grasped, grabbed, gripped. Around a throat. Around a bottle. Around the trigger of a gun. On the computer. Stirring a pot of stew, the air weeping with cayenne and cinnamon. Thick. Calloused. A gold band that holds him hostage. Wiry hands. No, his hands aren’t wiry, but thick with wiry hair like weeds on the pale skin. His hand throws bottles, knives, punches. They are paler than the rest of him, naked and fat. But the wiry hair is all over his corpse, even still. He was dying before he died. He was hopeful before he was hopeless. Around and around and around, the macabre—a dance, a thought, a corpus. His entire life for this. My entire childhood for that. His thick fingers could squeeze your arm until it turned pale pink, then white.
He used those hands to hold onto the samurai sword that was meant for decoration. In the dark, in the night, he pretended he was a samurai. Silently, he went through the motions. I saw reflected in the window, his body—large and undressed. The blinds were open. The urban dark landscape punctuated by lit up windows across the street. Other nocturnals. Others with fears. I stayed quiet around the corner. He thought everyone was asleep. He raised a stone foot, placed it down almost gracefully. He flicked his wrist and I envisioned an enemy’s head lopped off. I padded back down the hall, to my bed, to warmth. He tried for grace, but I still heard the mass of his foot as it landed in the cushion of the carpet. I imagined I could hear the fatal switch of his wrist, as I fell asleep and dreamed dreadful things.
Tiny Lobsters
Denny snacks on termites
that fall from
the thatched roof.
They, too, will dance
in a heated spoon.
[You cover one eye, upset]
You cover one eye, upset
though sunlight means nothing now
and against your cheek some mother
strokes her child –you praise half
and what’s left spends the night
the way all wounds begin
as a single touch then end
broken apart under the same wind
birds use for a home
and every morning more sleep
is needed, more darkness, returned
as if it had its beginnings here
is touching down, adored
by one hand held out, the other
no longer moving or found.
Erratum
Underthought as in underfoot, not
Undercooked. Dry snow, not wet meat.
Images are culpable if thought is
Infinite, like we sometimes imply.
To hold that all can be presented
Again, with minimal complication,
Underappreciates the way dry snow
Hides water from the subtle boundary
Of a phase transition. Melt, refreeze,
Step on, step over. Get out of the way.
Bystanders
Before burning, rangers scour
for strays, miss an old
deathwish bison, lenses
isinglass scrabble, heightened spoor
of the next world, lambent,
liminal in windlifted brush fire,
still as an uptown statue.
Zephyrs pare the swart umbra.
Infirm shag ecloses from fluming
helical caul, then retreats.
I take on white noise,
occlude as old world revenant,
rattling chains to
jounce the static of your gaze.
Primary succession. No goodbye.
And when black earth
seethes fade, rangers locate
flameskinned bone,
hear the gooey tar face
pop and spit, and that is that.
kitchen caught
comfortable between keys or connected strings it’s not
tricky transposition obliging
v
erging
on summer wear
layered,
i do not hold you dense
heartthrob