Wishing to Un-See
The worst image in the world
seared into flesh.
It spreads like boiling oil down my skull,
to my eyes,
to my nose,
filling it with the stink
of old water drowning me
in a pool’s depth of sea.
For R
Your voice is like the cracking of glass,
like a silver key,
like sun on a patch of ice.
It is a knife,
all edges and light,
and I could let the roughest part
of my skin become a wetting stone.
Planted
It is smiling on a wooden floor,
slipping into it like warm water,
feet bucking and splintering,
mixing with the glue.
Rooting me down
into an upright, silent scream.
In a Theater
Her hand is pressed to your cheek
and the light dims around it.
A black hole in reverse.
Your skin prickles,
each follicle rising up to meet her.
And then it is just you,
rising out of the darkness
like a fog.
Audible Patience
She hums,
patient as an oyster forming her pearl.
A sibilant breath,
a sound carried and rolled
by her hands.
She waits for him
to wade by and pick her out.
Tight Wire
The balancing act between
a thought and its burning action
happens on a blade of grass.
I stand on it,
toes ragged like a skirt’s hem,
and try to ease a result out of you
without losing my panting center of gravity.
The Good Word
I am a peddler of doubt.
Spreading its word like seeds,
hanging its glittering ifs like ornaments
on days of the most neutral colors.
Him
He is drenched in light
from nowhere I can see.
The room flickers on and off
like a warped television
until all I see
is his imprint lodged
like a splinter in my eye.
