blood/work
I never miss says the phlebotomist at 7am
every story told before this point is a lie
my testimony is an erasure as well as
documentary by definition objection
sustained objection sustained
in The Waves Woolf writes I will reduce you to order
I’m following a fire in Friendship Maine from
a great distance the volunteer firefighters fill
their tanks in the community center pond
fully involved fully engulfed two story structure
under oath my mother forgets my age
I’m already making to-do lists for the summer
reading around the scratches on my reading glasses
daughtering out means to have one’s family name die out
how do I want it down to the filter
a phlebotomist is a blood letter & I spell my
name in gulps of bile & gasp a humiliating public panic
it’s all choke in the moment it’s all choke choke choke
I was thinking how nice it would be to be cold
the day after the worst day of my life I go to work
the day after the worst day of my life I go to work
today I sold my first edition The Bell Jar
which a college boyfriend gave me as a xmas gift I meant
to read it again first but ran out of time
let’s kiss in our antique fast fashion
in the worst of it the minus stretch
when we never slept & an unlineated landscape
made of money owed & oversized
cumbersome inherited furniture that did not
fit in the Subaru filled the space of the buzz in my brain
let’s kiss then in the worst bit of the minus stretch
me & every other motherfucker driving
home from King of Prussia you’ve got a real
smart mouth she said a real fat
smart mouth she said & in it I nibbled
the one mean bone in my body
eat our everyday leaves drink our weekend wine
everything fits but I’ll have to be perfect
the color of my eyes is sellout donkey
the one mean bone in my body is in my elbow
the one mean bone in my body is in my elbow
my father was a great talker a great charmer
an adulterer & a real boy of summer
the commonwealth sued him for racketeering
but he was not an interesting gangster
the ell in elbow is a former measure of length
“locally variable” but generally around 45 inches
the bow is naturally but somewhat poetically a thing
bent or fashioned to form part of the circumference of
a circle or another curve some thing bending
a friend who is the same age as my mother called
me an orphan a friend who is the same
age as my mother called me a good daughter
my mother said that she would ruin my life & a friend
at work sent me the poem I wyll no more go to the plowe
& I considered therapy but I’m an undisciplined person too
devoted to appearing completely together all the time &
I could spend my twenty dollar co-pay on
coffee & a pack of cigarettes imbolc to equinox again
failed again back to bleakhouse
failed again back to bleakhouse
for several years I tried a daily writing practice from
imbolc to the spring (remember how Krapp pronounces) equinox
& for several years now I failed picture me photographing
a page in Carson’s Nox it does not read as I remembered it
picture instead the fog on the first
page of Bleak House fog everywhere & up the river &
down the river & fog on marshes & yards
& fog in the rigging & on the gunwales & eyes
& throats & barges & boats & fingers & foggy sinners
our block lit pink by accurate gas on the corner
in red lights acme across the avenue in red lights
imbolc to equinox again a commonplace book
secular vespers tidal murmuration
we met late in your tinnitus period
the day after the worst day of my life I go to work
I dream often about my mother pulling my teeth
out with her bare fingers & I don’t need to spend
twenty bucks to figure that out it is preferable
not to anticipate the city or the sea