The Mother and the Lover Left Behind

One, broken,
a nose
with screws
for eyes, plated –
face of grey. Two’s
the figured
stick
who isn’t
sitting still.
Three, a sugar
spoonful set:
enough?
to medicate
the elder
and
the flower.
Four, most
of May, all June,
July, if August.

Coma’s kind
of an umbrella,
after
all –
tobacco
smear and vodka,
vengefulness
and butterfly
tattoos
can fit
under
its canopy.
And too, a man
who thinks himself afloat;
would
this, a butterfly
to give her wings, two
weeks to
gaze upon the sea.

Polaroid

made material
in photographs: faces, sky
and smoke, shapeshifters.

one cloud shifts a shape
of lion’s mane, another
made to conga drum,

palm and chin that know
the tension caught in camera
lens, looking after

birds that turn the earth –
strokes form feathers, feathers form
the something someone

sees. Loops tobacco sets
afloat when set afire make
what mouth and meter

rhyme miss manifest:
nostalgia (east), yearning (west).
Stillness.           Then motion

The Invisible Girlfriend Grows Restless

Winter turns one back
upon another, or the world –
let someone else pretend

that everything is hypothetical
until it isn’t.
You and I know better.

The cows on Stratton Mountain
have gone to bed to dream
of being worshipped.

I dream of being
worshipped like a tangerine,
or at least hit hard enough

to wrap my navel
twice around my spine
to shake the numbness, still

the rocking bones
comprise the sacrum. I try
to learn my lucid mind

the ins and outs of thread counts,
cotton folds, seasick linens
nauseated by the stuffing

of a built-in cabinet. Dander
sprinkles on dry skin, reminiscent
of a cupcake, dressed with dust

and ash. I’ve forgotten
whether cows sleep standing,
how it feels to be the rumor,

separated from the body.
Let’s speculate:
What must this earth taste

when she swallows
down the dead? I mouth
at the freckles

questions on your back, open-
ended night too late. I want
to know what bedsheets

sell us in our sleep.
The comforter is cynical.
You and I, no better.

No Matter How Languid, or How Familiar Sweet the Palms of Your Hands

Like we look up / rain comes

resting head finds collarbone / pollen sticks

swing from high bar / scaffold

Second Avenue / in summer

connections: one thing / another

grin makes sense / a decade later

narrow space between accident / and everything else

the spinning of the earth / how everything must

encompass nothing / if italics make a voice

a sword that flickers / invisible

but for the ears / a phrase half-formed

shapes itself into a feeling / eyelash light

fascia opening to possibility / a familiar chord

three doors away / or floating

overhead / the word is imperceptible

Like when / the rhetoric professor says

Don’t turn this into / something it’s not