Things Falling from Shelves

There is no way to read a calendar,

one without neatly plotted squares of dates;

No month as header, nor year to track

Blanks on paper, unwritten appointments;

Untallied time spent on scheduled tasks

We live in flux, in vague hand gestures

And inside each head a lifetime lives

In a single inhale of wintry cold, the emptiness of its smell,

I recall mortuary calls and one-person beds;

No other person knows these secrets of December.

The Brain as a Harbinger

this gnarl of darkened

synapse and quickened cell

ensure my remaining

a sparrow of all rooms

It's the Set of Your Shoulders

I can't stand

not from behind

the scenes as I am anymore

the silence in my apartment

only words spoken to cats

you used to pet but

the last time you

came over they just

got sick at your feet

I am vomiting screams

that echo nowhere

but my sternum

empty of equilibrium

I create situations now

where I always stand

in the front just so I can

run if their shoulders

seem to square like yours

Tomorrow is All Horizon, So Where Does the Hammock Go?

I saw the sun filtered through

delicate green webbing of veins

ringlet circle whorls golden grain

blue peeking like children

whose giggles were berry 

sweets soon-to-be

hanging just within reach

Taken from the branches

I am teaming with self

tendrils of me rise in curls

it is a meadow resounding

this place with no trees

vast is the plain the veldt

rolling ever outward

Grasses for years

dirt to kick about

I have no to-be

left to climb

An Authentic Piece of Taxidermy Will Have No Seams

Prologue

Every beat a velcro rip-tearing

mind-soft whispers to myself

this does not matter this

is not spilled blood

---

Chapters

Every beat a velcro rip-tearing

mind-soft whispers to the self

this is not breathing this

is sewered closed-eyed

sighs of were-there

Sticky with edges to sink

little barbs of backing up

cannot-will not-could I 

ease stranglehold thick

beneath the collarbone

A series of chemicals sit

flush with red and grey

an orange would be

at once too piercing

and yellow a farce

Feet imprinted gravel

knees know secrets of 

dust of forgotten change

gleaming sickly of moonlight

and no goddesses there

Science be a savior

find organs to be muscle

observe colors to be refraction

bring the sum of numbers

echoing no memories

There the beat to pound again

merely reflex nothing to note

certainly no spurs of bone

born in the mind and no tendon

bound to the sternum of me

My Central Facility, and Our Sex

Posted under bedrock

that blackly gleaming mass

organic and fragile

tucked between bone slivers

singing tightened nerves

helium of a balloon floating

I wish to tell you in whispers

next time please go slowly

At Things For Which We Have No Name

I excel; the blindspace of mind wherein

we write our papers, have conversations -

that particular knack for no brainstream

of thought before the words tumble out;

the peculiar nature of driving forever past

an intended destination, the loving glance

at a painting while thinking of the past -

a feeling of magnum opus for the well-written

words on a page to exemplify a growth;

herein after we are never the same - I

am the writer of such things, if only within

my own mind: I do embody the wordless.

We Imagine Ourselves Soldiers

Destroyers of bridges we lean

too much to the water

wishing for riptides

knowing we have

no life jackets.

I Watched from My Desk

I initiated this

conversation;

can you see them

in your aging faces,

where is the ghost

of your parents?

I sat and listened

as two women

slowly derailed into

stories of college-ja vu

and the sag of necks.

I will never understand

the moments of

my stance is like hers

my jaw droops like his.

They are forever in time 

smooth of skin, they

who aren't them at all

the ghost of my face

but the ghosts of them.

Stricken

There have been balloons

released by mistake

sparkling glints shrinking

and pulling down as well

the excitement

the ready smiles

heavy to be so light

but there have also been

piñatas

full to the brim with promise

only yielding sweet

when shattered on impact