many who sleep in the dust of the earth [LMS VII]

In the garden, he stands with the creatures he lifted from the hole of his thrumming heart. He lords over his council of violent, comely hosts. None of them listen to him. He's this vaporish touch on my cheek, in my nostrils, in his unlit room, in the tent of tents, behind a lilac veil with too-long lines on it. There, I listen to his voice, low, thrilling. I feel it in my vertebrae, climbing to the nape of my neck. His touch feels like a cavity, tingling, rotten, yet new. He's newness. He is, in a way, too looming to view, yet too lovely to keep close. He's no less tiny than raisins in cake, though.

I like that he is venitive. He likes that I am contrite, too.

PRELUDE I:

Leftover lambs, it has been weeks on weeks, three times in the long year, the longer night. God likes ceremony, revelry, love. God likes you to give Him things. God likes you to recall Him, even if your garden grows.

People are always pointing to moments of beauty. On our first night out together, Daniel and I lean in like revoltists over iced coffee. I'm taking the condensation from my cup and circling hearts on the table. "Are you having fun?" I'm nervous, though not off my lines. "I think so," he tells me, "and I like your heart too," gesturing to the table. I'm looking in his eyes. They're the color of the night, now reflecting the glow of us. He’s coughing, and I think, for a moment, this feeling will resuscitate him.

"I want you to come out with me tomorrow," and my palms are sweating a Nile. I like that he is not nervous.

I am in the thick of him, in the wilderness. I've never felt so lonely, chest on chest to my own gentleness. He's quiet, luring. "There're no nights in my calendar," his voice is low in this, not noticing the right thing, captive to that which is not natal nor fresh. There's this routine in knowing him; he is a king, a heartthrob, glowing unlit in the night. He will get out of this narrative, though not out of his wilderness yet.

I think there is something noble in refusing to bless this totality, time. To say: no, this cannot be all there is for me here. This thing, life, is never not ugly, he knows this much.

WEEK 1:
line count: 23

i.
convent tightening,
ten years removed from then. i’m
glutinous, glue-y.

ii.
He’s crouched next to the river,
lit cigarette to his teeth.

I’m crouched next to him,
loving the feel of ache in my knees.
In natal vowels he tells me things he likes:
blues music, lucky numbers, chopsticks,
the cursive on the nape of my neck.

There’s no verse left.

He questions the feel, not the content, of him and I.
I tell him it’s like I’m new to life through him.
He lines me, then, cerulean.

iii.
on the third floor of the contemporary institute,
he touches my knuckle.

close to my neck, he tells me he knows this guy,
the one that knits tapestries. then his camera is on our toes,
in this reflective one, my heels next to his boots.

it feels like a labyrinth in here,
though he knows the layout and the referents.
my levving heart feels like thousands of little things,
but never one whole.