prevent or greatly reduce the risk of glass arm.”
—William G. Pierpont, The Art & Skill of Radio-Telegraphy, 1997
After the wintry diagnosis
of soon-blue lungs, we flame
the ether—
my blood loud and gummed,
winds sinking—
our hands in grief become serpent-footed fish,
clasped together —despite rising floe
—despite no restraining
the sudden wide poison
in my flesh captive
to paths unsprung—and yet—
happy denial, like surface,
still dolphins this region—
so as if from sea we upfloat, sidelong—
pregnant in and by lakes,
palm to palm, pretending
we are fluid undefiled—
so that we can
meet lightness—and not shatter,
but Run.
“Also known as ‘mermaid’s tears’ . . . sea glass is rare in most places around the world. But, in Guantanamo Bay anyone can visit Glass Beach and take home a handful.”
—Sergeant Emily Green, “Glass Beach on Guantanamo Bay,” America’s North Shore Journal, 2009
At Camp X-Ray, our weather (the bullet train)
cannot listen due to headlong.
Tenderloin lights and glassmen.
If everyone is the police, where do we survive?
Excludables include all affection,
even that of pastries.
Another corporal leashing
jumped orange.
Our headstalls? Mouthfuls of blood feathers, gristle.
Venereal are the elephants
of patience. Of the buried law they sing.
Gasoline has dealt with our river——————.
In every attic our mothers keen, bulging
with pins and mermaid
tears. Iodine vistas. Indecent sleep.
A boxed rock’s thoughts.
Occult chains suspending.
On to the next hook stop: eel quay of Delta.
And then a final sanding, a rounding—
into grain—
into vanishment—
erasure of imperial eye.