In that wind, I pulled my blanket in to me,
the edges of it beat against my legs.
Above, clouds germinated over
grey-grass hills, hiding the land line.
The finality of a grave is hard to see.
Dirt piled on wood and bones.
I wished to see a sapling, budding blue,
or even a prairie fire in all that space.
— Marlon Footracer
I.
He tears up my letters. He sends back no word.
But Burns has been staggering. His shinbones must pain him,
Decade on decade longshanking about –
Or so says my shadow, a greedy young gnome
Who follows my Burns for a generous sum –
With a whistle to signal the butcher and wagon.
What a sight they must be as they [...]
I say, Thank you.
You say, No, I think I might have
carbon monoxide poisoning,
and the way the looped wire casts
shadows dissecting your face
into slivers I count, re-count,
you may be right.
You say, I want to make love
out of cardboard boxes,
corrugated for your pleasure.
Where water and road
bend together, bracelets of protein
denatured, cardboard boxes
won’t work, I say, and begin [...]
Colima, Jalisco, Nayarit
We are unafraid here, and within
The neat cup of our arms is where
We hold everything in place
You think we do not speak because
Our faces have been baked into
Expressions of open-mouthed surprise
But we do not need to speak because
Our mouths are flutes, and the
Hollow sound of our voice needs no words
We have no eyes [...]
I watch you in the dust and you are
issei, Nisei, sansei
in white stone and kanji I cannot read
the thousand tsurus drape around your ropes
refracting the sunlight you squinted away from
and the Shinto Buddhist Christian prayers
give me homeland
and I know you are my people
buried underneath the signs labeled “baseball field”
and “Catholic Church” I see you
running, laughing, [...]
In sleeping fields beyond the city lays
I know not what, it matters not to me.
In numbered days I craved the craze that brays
In city streets; I think that you are free.
I want to be a good woman, and I
Wanted for you to be my good man, but
I tried my best and could not make you [...]
There was a fig tree
in the sick room
window, but none of this
was on our minds –
Only how the seed
is born into equilibrium
with the deadly wasp
that lives within its walls.
The fruit, a pestilence
of blood red syconia,
is cased within its sleek,
leathered mask,
hiding under finger-like leaves
that grow low to the ground.
It was this fruit only,
and its sweetness,
that announced [...]
White Styrofoam armies march out onto every street and come together in neat columns, cupping brown heat, melting through the slush of the city. Fragrant coils of energy seep through the veins of the machines. Puffs of warmth. Steam tunnels breathe in silence under the city. Shadowed skies above swirl the surface in dark ripples. [...]
A wink or giggle—that hesitation—
Was fashionable, polite even, as it
Undressed from the neck downward.
Lust both generic and clinical,
Planted kisses on a practice dummy,
The Poet’s Anatomical Encyclopedia.
Bit by bit by bit by bit by bit by bit
With the mouth, mouthpiece of the soul.
Shoulders,
Arms,
Nipples,
Breasts.
[under there’s a secret sealed valve—
ligamentum arteriosum—a baby heart’s
short-circuit substitute for breathing
in the airless [...]
Airport #3.
I silently raise my arms
letting her run the metal detector
up my legs
against my back
my breasts
her mouth taut, tingling.
I remove my shoes, belt, ring
I hand over my phone.
I even laugh with the men at Customs
as they unzip my luggage,
pulling out espresso cups I rolled in socks.
“What’s this?” one asks
groping my coffeemaker.
Earlier, at the second airport, [...]
The Campus Loop