Current mood:

weird

two new poems
that pretty much sum up what has been going on.


Maglite Flashlight/Anemone Enemy

When you looked into my throat with your little black flashlight—
pustules like white anemones
in a red garden—its light was strong;
and when you kissed my lips afterwards, parched with fever like two
wrecked mosses in the dull humming of cars and
the dull reoccurrence of light in the window,
you held that cylinder pointed towards the mattress like a gun
like it was worth all your money
like you couldn’t unclasp your hand around it black
and fine as it was with its unwavering light.

what an unwavering light you hold on my red soul! what suppurations
at its corners,
why do they call it a flashlight if it ought to hold steady,
as you hold it, beam level with your eyes
and pinning mine, your hand square on the small
of my back, black metal in my mouth, four of your knuckles
bracing the yawning cheek and your soothing murmur likewise a brace,
and the kiss afterwards too fervent, as if the lips must forget what the eyes have seen,
the hot mouth teems with pain, and unwise the hand
holding the Mag-lite drops; the overstretched diamond, its pin-sharp beam, swings low,
the smooth handle spitting back light, grooved notch for the fingers,
the light held in a bell or a silver cup and the bulb like a white bud ready
to be tamped in earth;
Maglite, my father’s favorite flashlight, which you hold
in your big fingers with ease, the same one he used
to retrieve his parents’ letters after their deaths from the big
old cabinet in their basement he called “the hutch” while water
dripped into the mold spores in the corners and the washer on the tiles
thumped with laundry for the final time, the ruined dress of a funeral guest;
How I wondered at you, mouth open,
hands out like a starfish,
as you observed the sickening bloom I could not see,
and returned to me, seeking your prize.




Macaw

Unlikely, my heart, like a scarlet macaw
descends from its barren tree,
and the snow, a heavy wreath, hangs on the ground.
When, in what hour, and was it alone,
when it grew such a coat of feathers?
No, it was with you, in your company,
that it burst out in reds and blues.
All the world holds its watchful silence
as, shyly, hopping from branch to branch,
at last fanning its marvelous wings,
my heart descends; it thrills with brilliant blood
then settles, murmuring, against your hand.