Day Eight

heir presumptive

of rectangles  i say:    bricks

    hot suns spreading themselves thin

~

i kept notebooks filled with

            my pretend importants: weights, lines i couldn’t step on,

the places i hid books, hoping the words wouldn’t haunt me at night

dirt, that could be wet but not necessary

futility,   explanatory loveliness

i couldn’t stop,                not for   death

   or porcelain filled  trees,

   how badly everything needs to be cleaned

~

i forgot how to say     pallor, your pronoun

you, 2 and 3 years older than the oldest

  person

       i’ve ever caught   scooping    up

weeds and rock salt,    trying to be

  my clothes

your stillness,  all the showing skin

not even enough to bathe in.

~

someday, my body parts will be so far away

  from each other,    they won’t know

where the other ones  are.

Day Six (written, but not posted, on time)

i didn’t have the heart              to

        

            every time i      open

            begin the slow process

of staggering   like   the weather

so i took sharpies        &        i found people

      living in their pockets    

i was taking a break from       good

                        crazy excited

for the tips of your hair,       diving and rattling   into

length,

           for now

i was born       institutional

             along the lines of

    what it would           sound like

    to swallow   your ear.

sometimes

  i can’t   tell   the    difference

between

                              thinking and       being quiet,

you, like           daily bread

so big      when i think about            how you got here

Day Five

the best kind of   foot              to be

                                             on pavement

is hush

 going up trees

            before

   coming back down them

the way the Spanish     lie down

before they   sleep

there are trucks made

    for becoming more   like       the underneath

of table clothes,   and       just like

                         the rest of us

mixing up the differences

               between throat and sink

     a good guess will represent              body parts

like chest, legs, immaculate penmanship

all things worthy         of being inside

paper cups,

            labeled,

not to drink but for setting   places

a good    piece of advice

  the next time your hand           finds itself reaching

past  birds and snow chains and bear traps,

things that palm readings   resemble

   the will to scoop hands into your lap,

    to count yourself

by the number of umbrellas

  you would carry down the street, were you

little      

                  

                        

                            more      than a handful

     of    paper     towels

  

    

Day Four

for Maurice

one time           i had horses

millions of them

             until floating became something

small enough

                        to slip into people’s drinks,

my knees suddenly too weak

to be held onto,

too many foot noises

                        and my own wandering

            grip

people are too lonely

                                                            and mountain like

   to be neighbors

so many drinks hugging skin, slipping

   me

beneath     my seat

long hair is not even that pretty

                                    just as

a poem needs to   throw up

a little

   sometimes,

we find out the accuracy

of liquids

I am no longer     of  identity,

    better

    than grasshoppers  and  ants

these things aren’t important,

            but they’re enough to be

like sleeping     again,

of the waking up

  habits of birdlife,

suddenly,         cold bathwater

and guns lying around,

                        i could        maybe

            shoot melting snow,    running

water, dripping  

            icicles

if that ever happened,                   

i can    go         like this      and

roll right onto you,

   but i have a hard time

        keeping the letters flat

around here,

words share the properties

  of

poorly cut metal, misplaced napkins, water

  more ice cubes than one breath could reach

and that’s life without kissing, anyway,

just my face

  pushing   up

against

            your face

Day Three

“The most elementary mode of expansion occurs through one’s father, the first presence of an outsider in an infant’s life.” “But men as fathers also play roles of long-lasting importance in their babies.” In this way, each infant born is both physically and socially identified. Within a particular public, its mother and “not its father” belong. When a child is born, its “father” finds a name from practice, [the] child usually called by [a] name that it receives from its “father.” The removal of the name, however, is a time to live continued, or on her own. No loan to be well taken care of. The child can pass the name. His child, her baby, she and with her parents, and no one public about being husbandless or about a child being “fatherless.” Yet the situation is not without emotion. A child “without a father,” even though denied a necessary noting, is socially disadvantaged. Not to have a “father” is to lose the contribution, is so important, but also represented by the similarities in oneself, by its mother, social potential. To gain from the ties [made] available. To be “fatherless” is to be socially essential parts. When a married couple has a baby, the claim of the “father’s” is that it is not expressed as necessary growth, to the fetus at birth, physical between infant and “father.” When necessary, how much the “father resembles” the infant. “In the case of Sara’s “fatherless” baby, there was no public discussion about whom it resembled, although in private I heard how much it looked like its mother’s former lover.”

Day Two

a little ways back

            i remember          you

stirring, stirring

feeling odd about             fathers, money, long fences

                                                where people stick their faces

                                                            and weep downward

thinking about    wrapping up  backgrounds

in other colors

            like pink, leather, bad conclusions,

always      a kind of adjusting

always     about money, too expensive

                                                            so

i escape the bills

                               by paying them in curls of hair

or        

       erasing the parts about me  or

sending them little conversations

about weight, my fear       of

  sitting down with mirrors,     distraction,      practicing my

           

                           little girl legs, so much uncrossing involved

           

and by bills, i mean       recollection

the things i owe you

                           for                 displacement

for the chair next to me

where my name sat (my will to stomp)

for saying, break these  in half       again,

to see them      little parts        

me         

and it gets easier

                                                also, to leave

the things that get stuck   between fingers,     teeth,

                                                       two lonely people

names become the stuck in between pieces

                                    other faces

we never think about               

                                               

                                                anything,    but

hugs   and   puking   and

removing the pieces,

all the women               who don’t know me

            who are a few years older than me

and the mirrors, disgusting        like axe blades,                   i wanted to try them on

but

people keep taking off their reflections

it becomes     the only thing    i can’t look away from

near your face,

                        not always easy to     distinguish you from          

without becoming your
        little handfuls
of bones

Day One

everything i know          somehow

feels like     warm metal

   the opposite of   nesting

the texture of          stuttering, still trying        to shut       the window

   before i have a chance to

            squint

the way you do, the cold air coming in

or in public,

            i only remember what not to wear

                 not to be spherical, not round like

things i’d secretly give away

                ornaments without names

it doesn’t bother me      when they disappear

or when ice cream goes away

but    i sometimes reach back too far,

try to    instead of undoing

try to                wait

so as to take      the things that could

get me   something

but

i get   upset

            about money,   dirty water, & cover designs

people whose alarm clocks

            add letters

to the places i already stand near

a pushing, a                  push, or nothing

                                    down

like   the lack of time      given

to the people

  with the dirtiest hands

            so much time disgusts me

how you offer               things

like: words, sentences, whole letters

            you’ll send them out for me, whatever

i need more room

  for being late,

the                    audience

already moving toward     goodbye,

my knees shaking             hours

before i’m even thought about,

the house flinching,   always nervous

always waiting,   how it can be so full

                                    of chlorine,

it is so much of

    why I sleep