The clockwork saguaros sprout extra faces like planaria stroked by
a razor. Chug
say the sparrows, emitting fluffs of steam. Chug chug say the piston-powered
ground squirrels.
The tumbleweeds circle on retrofitted tracks, but the blue pasteboard welkin
is much dented by little winds.
The yuccas pulse softly under the grow-light sconces.
Here is the door he will paint on the rock.
Here is the glass floor of the cliff.
Then one day she noticed the forest had begun to bleed into her waking life.
There were curved metal plates on the trees to see around corners.
She thought to brush her hand against his thigh.
She thought to trace the seam of his jeans with her thumbnail.
The supersaturated blues were beginning to pixillate around the edges, to
become a kind of grammar.
She placed a saucer of water under her lamp and counted mosquitoes as
they drowned.
(she opens the door)
(he is twelve inches
away) her fingers
still splayed across the
battened-down brass latch
of his sternum (she
closes the door) (he
is eight feet away)
her palm skids down the
banister clings to
the fluted globe of
the finial (he
is twenty-eight feet
away) (she opens
the door) the black air
is fast flowing and
cold (she closes the
door) she clutches her
thin intimacy
tight under her chin
and trips down the steps
In the lull, the afternoon sun warms
the linseed field. The flowers are quiet,
their bright subdued in the green
while the mind wanders
to the emerald mosque upon the hill,
built around a flowing spring,
the easy absolutions and ablutions
in that mosque where the spring water
has been let loose to meander
over marble courtyards and inner chambers,
across the geometric, green-tiled floor that
cools the heels of the faithful.
A hundred and one butter lamps are offered to my uncle who
is no more.
Distraction proves fatal in death. A curtain of butter imprints
in air.
After the burning of bones, ashes are sent on pilgrimage. You are
dead, go into life, we pray. My uncle was a man given to giggles
in solemn moments.
Memory springs like crocuses in bloom. Self conscious and
precise.
Without blurring the cornea, details are resuscitated. Dried yak
meat between teeth. Semblance of what is.
Do not be distracted, Uncle who is no more.
one lies in rags on the street
and his stomach is empty
and he wishes for death
one sits with friends at tea and backgammon
and his mind is empty
and he wishes for death
one sits in a straight-backed chair at a desk
and his bank account is empty
and he wishes for death
one lies in bed staring out to sea
and the place next to him in bed is empty
and he wishes for death
one flies back with food in its beak
and its nest is empty
and only this one says
we should give it another try
Once when I was harmless
and didn’ t know any better,
a mirror to the front of me
and an ocean behind,
I lay wedged in the middle of daylight,
paper-doll thin, dreaming,
then I vanished. I gave the day a fingerprint,
then forgot.
I sat naked on a towel
on a hot June Monday.
The sun etched the inside of my eyelids,
while a boy dozed at my side.
The smell of all oceans was around us —
steamy salt, shell, and sweat,
but I reached for the distant one.
A tide rose while I slept,
The old Russian spits up a plum
fruit of the rasping sound
he has stored in his throat
all these lonely years
made in fact lonely by his wife
who left him, God knows
without knowing how to cook for himself.
He examines the plum
notes its purplish consistency
almost the color and shape of her buttocks
whose circulation was bad
which is why he himself wears a beret:
black, good wool, certainly warm enough
the times he remembers.
or The Unfortunate Story of the Unmarried Flora Carrillo
And the Man Who Loved Her Before He Died his Famous Death,
From Whose Single Liaison a Daughter Was Born
And the Advice, Rather the Explanation,
Both of Them Left for Her, And the Story Also
Of What She Became, and That She Was Happy
William cut a hole in his Levi’ s pocket
so he could flop himself out in class
behind the girls so the other guys
could see and shit what guts we all said.
All Konga wanted to do over and over
was the rubber band trick, but he showed
everyone how, so nobody wanted to see
anymore and one day he cried, just cried
until his parents took him away forever.
Maya had a Hotpoint refrigerator standing
in his living room, just for his family to show
anybody who came that they could afford it.
