a seed in a watery womb,
stuck second hand in the
middle of the night
an ant climbs a coffee bean and you go into labor
hallucinating an iris
upside down
in a creek, losing shape
losing the hum of its life
anemia, only three weeks along
and craving sweet potatoes
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in the early Spring
i’ll be looking for electric rivers
soft woods
and pine grove sap
i’ll dress twice as warmly
i can see the freeze
from this angle of vision
the truth is that nobody likes the art of maximum effort
and in my blind spots are a few hard years
punctuated by a glass of dark jelly
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stay aching and hungry with no appetite
and think of them as annoying dogs, drooling on you
let yourself feel like chlorophyll
and skip the cold
choose the green flood
choose the ice cube on your forehead because it feels good
leave the rest of them but keep your eyes open
and bleed like you believe in the holiday
don’t you miss making meals for yourself -
don’t you miss not being fed by green-eyed devils almost out of food?
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ill and disintegrating,
rotten fruit is on my mind every time
and reflecting in watery eyes
your favorite color, the purple of wet bruises
it feels like a heart attack and humidity
it feels like not having a preference
and letting it all go stale
sickness in my stare –
what means anything to me but folding each day into impossible shapes?
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remember this electronic attack of blue invention
remember the new energy
remember the higher bills we’d pay thanks to all this
heat
remember this in the cold
remember this crushing frozen pollen with your hands
i believe you could grow the flower
just remember this blue invention
and especially in may in the sad imprint of a sweaty nap on your own
remember this electric blue
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a little too asleep
we talked about water, mud
and fingerprints
being alive
is a ceremony the color of mist
the whole wide world, a cut in your eye
i felt lukewarm but electric
you hardly seemed to realize
as the heavenly golden stuck to our bodies
i inhaled,
unable to mourn that which i threw away
my nausea, my head in the smoke,
my arms open
a sound from the everything
still familiar and broken,
still touched by a few surviving tangles
there, in the majestic chaos
i am put into the hands
of an elevator
and for something so brief,
the world was intricate and musical
i snapped my fingers
and the sleet,
the strings,
the light,
the island, a township so close
and cruel and heavy with one sentence:
it must come to a simple incomprehensible end
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my useless head emptied like a cracked fish tank
or it could’ve been dehydration
it could be the lack of exercise
but then in my perfect room with tadpole wallpaper
everything is watery,
watering me
silver-eyed kittens in my arms
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writing this is like crying
into a handwoven basket
and staring into green eyes or moldy rye bread
or the sound of the universe opening up over a piece of fruit
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that summer it was difficult to keep the misty distance in view
the immensity, alive and flowing, was hung on precious shore
and always against the sunset
my urge to light balsam in the open-wide
was never settled and the sparks
were innocent rubies
we landed in the high warmth where several dazzling trout slept
and we basked like long icicles on the poison trail
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please let me come out on the other side
please let me land on integrity
naked as I need to feel necessary
a voice like an uncomfortable bird
there were such harmless clusters of night
where I would make dinner with his wife,
it would feel normal
to step in an ink puddle
to eat mango for breakfast with children
to check the time on a wristwatch
to balance my lies on an arrowhead
this soft balance
this soft balance of trying not to drop the universe
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