Sifting

A clogged road salt tongue, processing.

His fingers make her feel like

licking nickles

to remember what kisses are worth.

Ignore his hangnail snagging on her

sweater

undoing the pretty stitches,

libido too dense to notice.

He is stale medicine.

He is morning breath without blushing and

always crushing the flowers when he stomps right

through the bed.

Routine gardening.

Her, weeding when morning breaks.

Composting boy parts, him.

For hard water stains, scrub in the afternoon.

Scab II

I walked to a place of nothing but sinking

and more sinking, and looked to the part of the ocean

where there- besides bones- was a smattering of ships,

and thought how each was red but laced with black connotation,

and each had a name I couldn’t remember, but then, after

pondering, did. And giving no regard to the bones that, in the sun,

give protection no more, I pulled what ships I could to

the coast and stacked them high in an open field,

and sparked a flame that didn’t light immediately-

the branch was damp- and then, aided by the breeze,

grew to an intensity so bright the ocean itself, together

with the bones floating on it, seemed to scorch.

I gazed on as every ship submitted to the fire:

John and Anthony, and, regretfully, the one branded with your name.

Scab I

I stole them all from stranger’s homes, first John and Anthony,

and, finally, the candle carved with your name. All of them I lit,

fanned with breath, and then left, dropping the match onto the welcome

mat on the way out. I watched from the safety of a window as the wax

dripped down onto the table, mingled with the wood and the grime of

pancake syrup past, hardened together into ugly lumps, all the while

encapsulating the candles in place.

Then, when they, John and Anothony, were nothing but puddles and lumps,

the flame kissed the table and the room began to glow as I had never seen.

There was nothing but burning, and more burning, and as it all burned I

warmed my fingers on the scorched glass pane. The walls sweated, as you had,

and turned yellow and then red and then were gone, as I am, and then I saw,

for the first time, silence. 

Catfish

I know the hunger.

That it chews you,

and not your chains.

A rowboat, an oarless boy.

Who am I to starve a man?

To evade the net cast out to

loop around my

heart and put it in your ice chest.

To swim against your ankles

with speed

and no penance.

To take no bait

from the fragile hook that feeds me.

To be your nourishment,

also, then, your murderer.

Clean & slim

The ticking in my left cornea
8 months
 12 before that
His hand articulating my spine
A phantom heart
An Indian giver

Strabismus

Your umpteenth^th birthday. Pleading to candle

flames to take you along (put you out) when they

water down, and

chair legs always leaning

to tip

tumble, leave tattered little boy on his knees

(already scraped) and crawling toward

the kitchen (not his kitchen) looking for cookies,

and light,

and women,

women’s cookies.

You chew with the crumbs coating your lips.

Spewing across the slick tile,

“could you button up my shirt sleeves,”

could you,

could you?

Could I think of a reason not to (selfishness? self fulfilled prophecy?)

that would justify an abandoned infant

around sharp objects. There is no way to say.

There is no one left to say who will emerge as his savior, no one volunteers

as such, the medicine won’t pick up the telephone, and

even on the day of

the umpteenth birthday, the silence

surrounds. It only breaks itself,

whispering “we can’t fix a brain.

We can’t fix a brain because things don’t fix themselves”,

My own thinks this to be true too.