. 

I count the joints of beetle legs, green black shimmer,

and I can’t remember the proportions that keep people sane.

I come to the party so I can find the backdoor, 

lay down with the rabbits, and lust for the dresses of trees.

I wonder if I have come to just this: 

a dissolution into the taste of doberman kisses 

the confection of small faces set with large eyes 

the blackstrap licorice all-sorts of serious young children 

​

.. 

when I’m in the kitchen, I mark my page with a knife

when I’m in the garden, I’ll take a tree for my wife 

​

... 

I’ll sing the song of a thousand and one good-hearted women

who walked into the sea,  

daughters of dust, daughters of air 

they braided their hair  

to hold their heads together 

​

…. 

sometimes I forget I won’t wake up fifty  

and a man or a whale shark or a whale 

with the heaviness of the warm-blooded 

and not just this translucent cartilage conduit of nerves

scouring the sea for the smallest lives 

​

….. 

we have seen so many images of the inside sea,  

the layer of face closest to the teeth, so speak  

as though this were your second language, learned late in life,

and every word you have is a dam against the ocean of intent behind it.