draw red lonely window
when small, let the lights go--
 
corpse package-wrapped
reflections at the meat counter, choosing
offal, this body
 
I have never died on a bridge
but I have held my breath
 
when the lake shovels its eyes out
I slip into myself
 

 
 
 
 
 
Return fingers to Amaranta’s
            shroud-making:
one cold and lonely summer in papier-mâché
            (ceramic with no lights and sticky hands)
trying to peel off my skin
            from the tissue--
twists lattice knots, these chemicals
 
Now, a Greek woman
            weaves night with spiders,
a dead girl with pearl eyes and hands
            blossoming tulips
(my tiny explosions in the cavity unspooling)
 
            do I grow
            how do I grow
 

 
 
Like the memory of your other body
Like the movie
Like the foetus breaching town
Like comfort scorching skin
Like the death-kiss of twilight
Like a lake roiling
 
Like radiation or sonar
Like a nickel, like parachutes or a library card
Like crickets from nowhere
      or glance of skunk by ruined theater
Like escalators abdicate to stairs
Like fleas dizzy with emotion
Like we only eat for information
 
Like I caved before you
Like I wanted to
Like diatoms sick with hair
Like a cache of spit
Like gagging
 
Like a leg of meat
Like 4,328 fingernails in a ziplock bag
Like too much gas, not enough long distance
Like a salt flat or oil stain
Like a giant shit of artifice:
     Me, blind gecko. Me, white skinless fish.
 
Like bot flies kissing wet of eyeballs
Like the diorama, precisely morbid, like the felted wretch
     of blood on the floor
Like the chamber of a guitar or a coffin