5 seasons of divorce
Autumn
cracking under the weight of dawn
intention ruptures into waking life
and you or I
as you were then
buckle under experience
our names now weren’t given
and you or I forget that home’s a colony from another vantage
bird chorus for our dead
sold to billboards
although we hide them with hopes, under the floorboards
we make space in the lounge for the factory and we like it
the factory hand upon my shoulder
the foreman being forward
dearest, I’ve heard good work from you.
when I follow you to the kitchen at night
you’re eating from the box
straight asleep upright, eyes wide
I strive for the town under my feet.
but sieving in the river — I sieve for gold — there’s only lapis to weep through my hand’s wounds
like we were never there
do you believe me?
you sieve too.
who knows where
but I’ve seen you
hands tarry
lips stained with berries.
we share hopes we keep mouthless.
one day, I will pierce the veil with my skin.
Winter
We become what we least expect in lamplight. I give nothing for gold drops of tomorrow
the cat maws at the window for birds flown
she wants the key, I carry the key.
like the door, I turn to reveal — another aspect of this space we share,
but I’m pulled between sitting and affirming,
crying at the window, or affirming, or affirming the tears at the window.
I step in a bowl of cream on the floor.
I sleep with the eyes of a bear. when we fuck, you fuck a bear.
I exit through the door. books unfold into partial economies. I am stretching from the rain toward Mediterranean light, but can’t wrap my tongue around otherness. I’ll die with bread in my mouth. I sing full of wine.
Spring
Between fidelity
And what is this? How are you, lately?
My smoke is tied up in different hair like names
on ginger tongues
I hum for the first
when the word was just moments between fingertips
you press on me as I print another tone on the Pissarro canvas of myself, indistinguishable under lamplight
from subterfuge or faithfulness
an essential expression of vitality or indulgence.
But I can’t cringe as my curls hold between your fingers, humming ever-present throughout.
All I take of life is moments, writhing moments, while my husband holds the prayer sheet.
A slip of gland on the sheet before the next century
while Joachim dreams
of the babe who won’t come but cum for me anyway.
I wait for fear in his eyes, blooming from the swamp like a lotus.
Summer
Jump from the boat into the river
As you become the water
salt hits my tongue like a dream.
Drink you like a cigarette in a cream room with the fan on.
Midday, I’m thirsty, spinning on my back in the sun
still unbound when the rock stops
sticky azure cut through with white lines
inside the dome are infinite routes
all of them brim with the possible.
Autumn
Cats inside cradles or oceans within shores. Always pinned between dynamisms,
desiring what serves us and awakedreaming to cross imaginary insurmountables,
the instance between the skip
and the bright city, shining sea.
In the air, we don’t understand obstacles as thimbles to cut the prick of fingers on thistles in the cloth.
As I die I bleed and awake I dream.
These stories tell them how I am with you today and not a second longer. The present stretches over my desire for tomorrow, like Penelope with her geese.
If you were beside me now, how could I honour you without having you serve me?
I’d accept nothing less than a keg of your potential in my void.
But I’d rather you fill my cup at your bacchanal, draw at the glass until my teeth are red strawberries and say more. Until it’s a howling sound
More. My whorishness is reserved in the twisting library of Babylon. Next time, I’ll play the blind librarian, and take a boy as my philosopher.
In the interim, we wait, until the fatal knowledge softens in the verdant grass of spring.
