Poetry

I chewed your words with my morning
coffee and watched drivers peel out
of their driveways, while you crawled
“along the thoroughfare
of snakes.” Then I ate a peach and sweetbreads.

We brush our teeth with bottled water.
We shock the well with chlorine.
After a day we turn on all faucets
and for hours flush the tap.

The desk clerk’s a slow jerk. The crowd grows,
Wanting to send parcels to friends and kin.
The path of the people will not become overgrown—
Dear readers, puzzle over this Pushkin line.

Harder than I imagined, her
pregnant belly, the thick rind
of womb pliable yet taut. O
sweet shield of flesh.

Is this History, he said.
No, she said, it’s beyond
that door. The exit sign

also shows a way
in.

Gleaned from battlefield. See fade. See shutter as relic. Black cloth. Wisp. Tendril.
Lash. The stain that used to breathe.

Listen, cochlea: invite nightfall’s curtains
to weave their moths in your chambers.

The only drums you need beat on
inside the body’s cage, and even then will stray

first fire took hold
of my right hand later I learned
how to dry the tears of the blisters
without screaming then I began to say
thank you to the raw glove each morning

If it were,
though I much doubt it,
wouldn’t it be less leaf
than breeze, more winter
than summer, and nothing to
weigh it down—

No need of light,
he knows the subject well enough
for years has shaved
without a mirror, his fingers practicing
the planes and contours—