you are a body

what are you afraid of?

everything is broken & split & damaged anyway
everything is connected & beautiful & stuffed to brim-

-lessness with possibility anyway

there is no         i             wholeness            perfection      

                          image                    purity

                               to protect anyway.

tomato sauce

the chopping knock knocking

fine lines from sharp knife

red cubes in single files

piled higher each slice

garlic in oil starting to sputter

scent turning brown umami

then overtaken by freshness

flesh & water meeting heat

slowly

the thickening

the splitting the crushing

the floating green seeds

bright skins of thin films

the salting the stirring

the waiting

slowly

the thickening

the wafting 

a small spoon tasting

more salting more stirring

for a rich & deep & saucy sauce

puzzle

if i knew

the sense i had as a child

of being alien, apart, unknowing,

thrust into a human body with no manual

or coaching, sent with only a fiery belly,

would only be magnified with age

would i have approached the puzzle differently?

the doorway of each day bursts open in my mouth

like a too-bright lime. memory feels less real

than dreams, which feel less real than stories

i can read. so i write my archives of selfhood

over & over, creating new flamboyant keys

for all the locks that stay grim & rusted shut

& all the hurts flowering into vivid wounds

& all the secrets, unseen, catching secret fires

in a jagged metal playground. if i knew as a child

that the hurts would never dim

instead transform with a fury 

little child-me had never seen

into exploding stars black holes

tightness incineration & ache

would i have loved the puzzle anyway, as i did?

would i still fail each day, in more flamboyant ways?

would i scrape the mango stone

with my crooked teeth & roving tongue

would i rub it around my gleeful face 

in secret ritual anyway?  

the news

all of a sudden i got tired of everybody

talking, and all their tired opinions. 

i didn’t want to hear about movies, or cinema.

literature festivals. performance art. new books.

i didn’t want to hear who made them angry,

or their tepid takes on politics, or weather.

but i liked when you described the birds to me 

in the morning, their colors and quirks,

which ones are polite recipients of your rice,

and which ones unkind. i liked when you

strummed guitar or read me a poem.

*

i don’t want to hear anybody tell me the news,

it is always awful. the world is sad, and strange,

but most of all absurd. there is beauty everywhere.

and also ugliness. in the very heart of the world,

and in all its tendons and veins. in the furthest

reaches of every system. even in the beautiful chest

on which i rested my hand, and then my tired head.

every day is a doorway

but something ineffable remains just the same

no matter how many thresholds i cross

if there is any god i pray to it is transformation

but perhaps this turning wheel is what it means

to be a person, some continuous self, a thread

carried through the churning soup of time

and turned into nothing new, no transformed

material, no perfect nostalgia, no solved puzzle.

midweek dream

there are endless doors 

inside every one of us

& some of them open

to places we don't want to go

we are mazes we are mirrors

deformed funhouse mirrors

mystified & mysterious

most of all to ourselves

events & actions astound me

burbling creeks have found me

city lights are crackling loud

my heart is quiet as a mouse

perhaps i can forget everything

start over on a hill of snow

fly my self into the wind like a

bright & hopeful kite

invocation

something i will create here

a cycle a season a ripple of thought

like brief patterns on black sand

i have seen enough i have seen too much

i do not know how to be a professional 

or a person or a body or a temple

too many days feel like time loop movies

something eerie is wrong with the air

some truths make living feel like a bad trip

but i am alive & i am getting older

which means nothing except the days

are getting shorter & the secrets darker

world come read my half eaten dreams

like reality they are garish & incomplete

i have no finished drafts or selves

but something i am going to make

of my life my breath these dusty words

something i cannot sell you

lovers

the words are little coins
one of us still dropped

in the grimy well

we are lovers, we are hopeful

the world continues to simmer and burn

on occasion my wrists are kissed 

by somebody who has eyes like stars

what could i have done to receive such kindness?

people continue to die, and to suffer before that

now or later everybody i love hurts and heaves

there is so much that can fail in these brittle bodies

there is so much pain in these hardened hearts

i make my lover laugh but it is true

i feel too much, the great wave of feeling

knocks me over each day, i walk through

it like quicksand, weak ineffective knees,

time thickens around me and i am made

soup, i am loose, i am lost, i have flew.

the calendar flits onwards. loss stays

in the air like smog. love comes, holds me,

loves me, leaves. in the chalk-drawn world

i am still here, i am still learning, i will

learn until i am drawn white and time

eats me, leaves no bones. i will learn and learn.

kiss me, please, and let me mourn.

tip for monsoon

clove oil 

sprayed on every surface

saves objects from 

the relentless armies

of fungus and mold.

who knew the kinds

of things that grow?

little hairs of filaments

gentle dust of spores

if D sprays clove oil on 

their old watercolors,

the pigments may change.

*

two unseasonable 

april showers later,

the mulch is dry again.

but the air nearly hums

with all that held water.

this is where we will live,

in a see-through soup,

until different days arrive.

the rain is many-hoofed 

and persistent. the rain likes

to be heard, to be felt, through

the creases in your raincoat,

in the ankles of your shoes.

the rain knows you are asking

yet again: who will i be 

this monsoon? how will i love?

will it make sense, all the turns

taken in dry months? will it

make sense, the endless days

turning to dust in my fingers?

the rain is thrilled

to blur your vision again

to fill your mouth with water

if you ask too hard

and do not sit in the silence

of thunder and rain-hooves

your skin wet but finally

feeling again

the singing

O broken world

thank you for having

me here & also broken

thank you for breaking

me in this way

long muscle in the leg

aching, aching

vibrant green of my heartspace

muddied by all the grief

there is so much to cry about

yet it is hard to cry

all the grief lives like rocks

in the riverbed of our souls

it is what moves the water 

through, what causes burbles

O broken world

today I cried at how nothing

can ever be perfect or even

just okay: this wild & tender

living breaks me, aches me

yet imperfections are what 

make us, the glitches in genes

shape us: species upon species

& each one buzzing in aliveness

feather colors popping, & textures

& faces, little hairs waving, & all the

delicate physics required to work

an ear. All comes via error. & here

we are, and we can hear.

& how the songs all make us cry.

O broken self, so the songs can slice

through us & beyond. O broken world

you are my heritage & I will learn

to love you, to live you, to sing