I have never bitten into anything

7.

Bus conversation
brought rhythm to impeded
speech like free-est jazz;

be-bop syllables
legato then staccato,
neither with cadence.

It sounded as if
commas, were, splitting, each, word,
then, each, sy, lla, ble.

8.

Pinprick morning eyes see through blurry films. In the peripherals:

one. A polyester carpet--sleeping bags--breaks the dry monotony of spring-feels-like-almost-summer grass.

two. Important man, suited, takes calls from other men, suited; octopus arms scattered papers, receipts, coffee cups & tie.

three. A rough sleeper/panhandling hopeful, wide awake, wishing a good morning. In my pocket, a toehold on Everest's side; a second [a girl], she's taught her dog to hold a newspaper in between its yellow-black teeth.

four. A scattering of people staring, smiling [at the pet]--'look, look'--'isn't it cute'--'bless.'

9.

In midday I watched the children play
on the west side of town
outside my bedroom window.
I thought how bright the paper is inside
with blues & limes & how proud
the colors stand within the skin to be
a pioneer for the small & tender.

With the last of the spiders wiped
with pencil textiles I could hear
these tiny howls, a gathering of five boys
throwing around a football remaining invisible
behind thumb greased glass.
Surely children’s beady-eyes bright in hopes
for resulted gutting knees & grass filled mouths
is a life lesson of its own;

outside is a war, & I am watching
against a patchy globe rondure the blur
of a boy beaten down around the ball,
the white lace shining off
a sunlit fire pit.

It was like watching nerves of growth
as an oceans current; the ripples
carrying them along onto an island sand.
The red shirted boy holding onto himself,
clenching for breathe while the others like flies
when surrounding the pig; hovering over meat,
raw & stiff.

10.

Your face like a stomach in winter,
all nauseous with snow.

Your face as vulnerable as Virginia Woolf,
reading until your abdomen cramps up.

Your face as open as summer curtains
& as hurt as shot wolf.

I take you to meet my uncle on a Sunday morning.
He prays before we eat.

Your face cratered with doubt, & so I take your hand
to squeeze it underneath the table.

11.

Jagged summer,
my family rents a house
on a lake.

My first day there,
I sit lulling in the water
until I have completely finished
picking apart my bones
as though I am a fish
[or a twelve year old girl];
when my eyes close,
terrifying shapes
flash

across their lids.

The first time
a boy calls me beautiful,
I run six miles home.

12.

There is no confusion
in the ways we hold
our bodies in sleep.
It is only unconscious order
upon each other's
skin.

13.

[CW: Miscarriage]

There is sea salt all over my hands,
& I know I'm not the ocean.

Let's drink tea out of mason jars
with cold porcelain shards instead of ice,
& let's cut our mouths
on every argument we've ever had.
[I hope you don't mind if I make a home out of you.]
I'm sorry if my spirit doesn't fit so well inside of yours;
you see, I have been carrying dead weight with me
& mourning the emptiness left inside
this cavern of my womb,

nonorgastic.
I'm writing my past poems about you into the sand,
waiting for the tide to clean my slate, anew me.
It's been raining here for months
& I can't seem to turn this leaking faucet off,
which reminds me:

the sea is yours, only if you want it.

14.

The day we broke fast
it was late July & your body tasted like heat
& rain, even though it hadn’t rained all month. That July
the grass died, & then our parents died, & then the neighborhood dogs,
& the squirrels, too, right out of the trees, & there were flies,
buzzing like the wrinkles of the elderly.

I cried until I didn’t have a throat anymore,
until I was just one large body, very empty, very carved out,
like the pool down the street
that grandmother used to take me to.

15.

Pebbles & pistachios
wrinkle in our pockets
like my mother’s
attic wedding dress.
From the side, your nose
looks like an oil well.

You tell me the weather
will be painting itself bruised
for the next week;
I tell you about yawning.
It is spring & I am thinking about
your hand overwhelmed
by sweat,

& how two years ago,
it was winter. Your hand
was broken, but I made you
hold my wrist anyway.

16.

When grandfather was alive
he took me to that tree
& picked me an apple & told me about family,
i.e., mothers tied to mothers tied to mothers;

now I am the only daughter.
Grandfather told me about my birth:
my mother cried until her face turned transparent
like the thinned out wine that my father
drinks at dinners, the wine my mother tries
to ignore: she’s terrified of her ancestors, all

drunk like barrels of young boys. I had three
sisters & they all left home now: an ocean,
a train, a burst of lightning
flying through the sky.

One day I will learn how to sing the way
the women at the local church do.
I still stand outside the open stained glass window
with my eyes closed & pretend that I can feel
the pews pressing against my body
like a nervous man's hands.

17.

There is still so much
pavement left for me to see,
& one day I want to be able to list
all of the names of places
that I’ve lived in.

I’ve lived mostly in you.
Also, there was the house by the lake;
by the lake there were woods & in
the deep mouth of those woods
we lay with sweaty arms & burnt legs.
You unwrapped a pack of cigarettes
& I unwrapped my mouth, spit poetry
into the sand;

[though it wasn't summer,
& I couldn't write poetry in autumn.]
It was like I was leaving my mother’s
womb all over again.