(The celestial sobbing
of a year cut short.)
When the world ends,
we will all be high,
laughing at the telenovelas
we have lived.
The fire will clash with ice.
But where it all really
breaks down
is the anticipating
burning in the dumpster.
Like champagne
the old distrust bubbles
out from my upturned tumbler.
Now there is nothing
but trust.
(We all know how it ends.)
Oval angels
make math difficult
The leaves have turned white.
They know what that means
and don’t want to
talk about it.
On paper,
the universe is as dull as
a towel.
The universe as a theory
reminds me of an
old riverbed.
In practice,
it is a high, drunken girl
looking to get away.
The angels always
keep the music,
numbers just out of reach.
The moon casts a shadow
on my bed.
The cat scratches at the door.
It isn’t mine—
the cat or the door.
Splayed across my bed,
an ancient dream
just vaguely glossy.
In the well of his eyes
a songbird drowning,
his last note shaking
the earth like an aftershock
Carrying a cane,
he mocks old age
and then beats him with it.
The various compounds in his
organs like chasms of
darkness sewn up into life.
In his neighborhood
the children shirk their
playful duties
break all the rules of youth
by filing taxes
and reading Schopenhauer.
In the bushes,
a sharpened surprise
awaits him.
The cloth Christ
hangs from the
peg on the wall.
My voice is in a vault.
God gave me the gift,
and he holds the key.
If I ever speak again,
my voice will be an Easter.
I am cold.
God’s son will warm me.
Lent falls off my life
Like a damp towel.
The vault door opens.
My singing rises in
praise of the risen.
The lake was created
with pastels
and sometimes I smudge
God’s work a little
when I pass through.
In my little canoe
I row with only
a nebula for company.
The gestation time
for my poignant pointers
is seven days.
My pace swells.
On the shore,
so many men link arms
with so many women,
drapes and windows.
Ideas are born to separate.
Before my family began,
a star threading DNA
through her burning arms.
Five point kindergarten star,
the classic.
In a sea of guanine,
boats bobbing in the storm,
future dismayed joints.
Among the blooming cytosine,
dysfunctional minds floating
like pollen
then collapsing into solidity.
The voices of pre-dead women.
My sight unsewn.
This star will explode.
Children mature
the way multitudes desire,
turning from proud stones
to sand.
The machines take turns
walking me.
I’ve been ill with
wicker baskets for weeks.
Between my legs,
unzipped zipper.
Epiphany window.
When I was pregnant,
I lived wretched
as a butterfly in glass.
After birth,
I became a flower.
My stone
makes my reliquary
when she naps.
Far away,
mortars,
pestles,
beaches.
I will hide her in
the hungry mountains.
My shoes are made of china,
the white and blue decorating
my spectral feet
like moon shadows.
Everywhere I have ever walked
has been coated in bone or glass.
I avoid mirrors.
They show me all my thoroughfares,
and all but one are cruel.
The last is frightened.
Little by little,
my feet bleed.
The friendship between
nail and noose is
careful, refined.
Outside the pharmacy,
a pale and rain-soaked line.
What I know in my head
I do not know in my wrists
that hide a way of love.
The tree is held up by a cable
wrapped around Gabe’s hand
at the other end.
On the tree,
a sign nailed in
“Welcome.”
Miniature Moon 