If gold, your figure as mirror on the ground is
After Alejandra Pizarnik, after Fernando Pessoa
i
Comic screen to change what came to notice Even though sky
at first was the same blank slate So literal. The value of it
You make your own lion’s teeth sink in, slowly
ii
The insects claim you don’t belong here then bite & bite
Virtue the undulant yards as penance
iii
iv
The capuchin stays silent in the void
You feel the sun of unknown experiments
v
Once a choice comes to full & the act carries the joy of struggle The winter mother
severs only a chance at restarting. Could you sorrow
the one unchosen thing infinitely so it feels occasional, the act is itself
vi
If I write a texture I could make it stucco like childhood
Aloe or cactus spines To cut is to heal
the rough of a cut All dark blue against good skin like leather
vii
Imagine the root of oppositional archetypes Next to me chrysanthemums the rust of blood when it dries but
in front of me So much blue & a broken white
I can’t see myself on purpose
viii
What rocks itself out of time on a wingbeat Is not a name or a silence
As in sanity’s
meager gestures. Downriver, the unruly sound turned
C-shaped / Real secrets as fragrant and familiar as what’s under the smoke
ix
I stand next to the rocks
Where you choose to return without choosing / Some black, some silver
The lines of ash & passage A neon swig of enlightenment
x
Don’t be exceptional in this false.
All fluent in nothing, hiding where your debt grows
Be aggressive or do not mind, you say
I feel like a chicken after boiling Or like you do now — smooth from the pain
(I love how you love promises because they are lies)
(I love the honesty of cheap rings)
Like a ripened plum or two, pitted — Now a flat middle ground, now another
interior to hold the ruin
xi
Your hair grows in eighths on alternate days but you pretend not to count What rains in it
What grandiose adornment hasn’t happened but will happen Also a lie — in color
xii
The grunting you hear on the other side of the wall might be music Or the disaster of a concrete floor
The western cities, the eastern cities / that inscrutable skin I chose
The high ground of resurrection Discursive —
falling soft / I witness the guilt planted for others
I practice by moving my legs I am a bracket
You are the conquering seawall
Nothing earth about you except what clean is visible Also your hands
