Posts
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“Name your torture,”
one of them said
with a wink.
I wanted an orchard
but I swallowed the vodka
he handed me
willingly.“The Gorge”
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the day I arrived in the hotel
in the financial district
to meet a Russian photographer
who promised me a night in an expensive
suite and a binding contract
that has been violated over time
without my awareness,
my nails were painted
blue to match my
bruised knees.I thought that was
cute.“how I made rent”
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slugs salted on the patio,
cicada shells clinging to the moldering
legs of my childhood picnic bench,
hundreds of unclaimed Easter eggs
rotting under rusty swing sets,
a mouse writhing on a glue trap
that was just SHOVED
in a garbage bag
and me
just staring–
just
freshly out of love.6.
my wings tip towards
the sun and I’m triumphant
in my emptiness,
my patient nihilism I
chew when the void becomes
the only measurable thing
in my life I don’tnotice the oncoming car.
grasshopper never notices
the magnifying glass
or pesticide gun.
dog with the mange and glaucoma
blithely to cage.
drunk blindly to rage
then car
then grave.
snail to salt,
cricket to web,
temple to gun
and you say
what I never notice is
us.“love”
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“Then what is there?
Nothing, I think,
only haste to die before I die.”–Louise gluck
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I wore black every day
just in case.
the train was fifteen minutes
late and I was
one month
and counting.“the accident”
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the kind that takes whole
neighborhoods
hostage andleaves the dismayed
picking through the remains
to find their charred family albums
while their babies are off
staring at ash clouds
that block the sun
holding an empty leash
and at such a
young agefinally understanding
accidents, permanence,
their environment’s
severity and no exits.
you always remind them
there are no exits.“grief”
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last words
hang in the air
like a drunk ellipsis
that doesn’t know how to
let go.you’re famished: learn to
feed yourself first
eat the savage sadness
you drive with;
your third overdrawn
valediction between you and someone
you never really knew.
swallow your pride,
swallow your words,
eat his fucking heart out.
watch it all nest,
watch it nuzzle in your silk,
flutter in your lining,
incubate and bake
into a thousand tiny worms
squeezing from the casing,
a thousand black balloon
butterflies
are bursting from your lips
and gliding through ice
gusts of wind.watch them hover,
watch them expand, watch them
land on the cheeks
of all the boys you kissed
hello.
watch them
*pop*
into a thousand
uninvited phrases.
no
run down and cake their
faces like mud tears,
turn to stone,
stay pressed there.
watch them carefully
from your handmade stage.
you can feel the prickle,
their hair stand on end
from here.
watch your men,
girl.
they are starting to talk,
shiver,
watch you with
a closing distance .“a thousand salutations”
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you’ve been coming home
mint chapstick and
tobacco pieces stuck to your lips from
those poorly rolled cigarettes.
extra bus fare.
bottom shelf whiskey and
natural laughter
spilling from your breath.
I keep findinglittle post-it notes
shoved into your pockets
pasted with someone else’s playlists;
some other guy’s suggestions
on how to lift your spirits
when the depression gnaws your
spindles
like a cancer and
you’re too tired to
undress yourself.
I’m still herefollowing you under the covers,
taking keys from your hand,
leaving fresh water on the
nightstand.
gnawing your earlobes
with some panic and
whispering at your hair
you’re manic, dear
pinning you down with some
well timed stanzas.“the boyfriend”
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“And some things have the nerve to be just getting started.”
–Louise Gluck
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you seem like you have a developed a
patient practice
memorizing our delicate contours;first your fingers,
then your eyes,
trace gummy worm spines taste it
women’s arched backs
soft wet flesh,
mouthful of yes
near the bed frame
as they fall into you,
as they open knees
as they open attachment,
as they open
gash and youstiffen you watch
with now closed lesions
using us like drinking fountains
and we bleed irresponsibly
but remember
some mouth full of
indifference,
an old word or two
you threw like a heavy blanket ,
a band-aid
no
at their scapula and
they straighten back.
they stay in bed as you
are (finished) a leashed laceration,
tied to some place we can’t guess
with sleeves and scripts and
ambivalent attachment, chin tilted
towards street, and
a swallow that was almost a word but
you’re on one bad laconic streak
so you just sniff the air and
don’t offer them water.they are holding space
on the floor,
Indian style,
in case you need warmth.
you have a coat so you
politely decline,
hand them their hat,
put on your shirt,
call them a ride.
bare feet, gather their socks,
tilted backs to check for rogue earrings,
grab the scarf from the doorknob
near the door frame,
remembering the gentle no
moving backs,
wrapped in sweaters, pea coat shields
as they walk
quickly, quietly
(forgive the boot heel)
a clacking no
away from you
that isn’t felt
yet.years have gone by and
what lovely new spines:
unbending,
unending bone,
untended memories of
cool depredation,
once spread like legs
now inflexible.
once swaying effortlessly
like reeds in your lake,
now planted firmly in the dry
not yet.
spines that are walking,
sauntering,
coming back for an earring they forgot.
machete sacrums.
nerves like fighters
marinating in indignity,
blood lust,
no.
so many years have gone
by and these spines arerazor sharp from your
diamond stone tongue,
growing and
ready to write
you.“backbones”
daturamoon.com 