i. the positing of space, corporeal history
medium of my body
bent to narrow rivers,
touching of the touch
commits
totem to shape:
jasmine buds,
water poppies open as the mouth.
Propolis and juniper oil
resinous viscera
embowered in trees,
A man with binoculars
fixed a shape in the field
and we stopped and saw
the albino buck browsing
in the oats — white dash
on a page of green,
flick of a blade
cutting paint to canvas.
It dipped its head
The world bends us to its purpose.
In the public gardens, we found
a “gazing globe” balanced
on a waist-high pedestal,
a silver ball a foot in circumference,
reflecting sky and ground,
ourselves as we stood above it.
We stared into its depths,
as in a crystal ball,
our faces large and wild,
arms and legs unnaturally small,
as if a spell were on the world,
or, finally, we clearly saw the world
for what it was: too brightly
shining, circular, unadorned.
The opposite of walk?
A psychic with a crystal ball
and tarot deck
who sees green
when your palm is read.
At the sign of a red palm
I don’ t walk,
I run.
As simple an act
as opening the eyes. Merely
coming into things by degrees.
— — — A simple Child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?
I met a little cottage Girl:
She was eight years old, she said;
Her hair was thick with many a curl
That clustered round her head.
She had a rustic, woodland air,
And she was wildly clad:
Her eyes were fair, and very fair;
— Her beauty made me glad.
“Sisters and brothers, little Maid,
How many may you be?”
“How many? Seven in all,” she said,
And wondering looked at me.
dine on disco balls and starfish,
our jowls crashing
like cymbals,
while my baby brother takes out his eight-ball
left eye and squints his right
to line up his shot
on the world’ s smallest pool table.
Mother has a camera for a head;
it flashes uncontrollably
though she claims to have run
out of film a hundred years ago,
when father’ s penis,
By the sparklet of certain ciliates cesium
practices its cricket song.
Am I supposed to be impressed? My smoothie
comes with gps.
Take a left at that crustacean. You — yes, you,
with the crisis Isis eyes.
By Odin’ s beard, this is snowier than usual. We can
always burn the first folio.
Go bug a dandelion. You’ ll have
the elephant of surprise.
So much sky
Because we canbecause we can
a new kind, our new people
this is us now
we didn't know we were here
we don't know how it happened
we flew out of their arms.
