When I’ve left this locking body,
sack me in a shawl.
Don’t let this cat out of the bag.
Roll me over in the clover,
sling me slowly into the underground.
Take up your brought shovels
and fill me in. Tamp me down,
so the earth will plant a kiss,
and welcome the worms.
I will be watching.
Suppose
you could take me with you.
Into this, your shiny time
of smiling at the sun,
of feeling the quickening
of love’s stirrings.
Of planning without the thought of ending.
Of being adored.
Tag along, I would,
incognito.
Even, I would pay
with what I have left.
It’s curious.
In this incestuous head,
bone is squeezing too tightly.
Turned one way, what’s real is swirled.
Degrees aft or starboard,
things will gel,
but sound is suddenly smothered.
Venous rivers are imagined,
and the heart’s voice is a drum.
The ghost may be giving up.
The watching of bobby socks
on feet with a popcorn smell.
A shy face
with downcast eyes and freckles.
If I can coax her smile,
chiclet teeth.
Fine and white,
but tilted funny.
You drive me crazy.
I videoed you at the party.
Fifteen minutes.
Just your feet,
crossing and uncrossing.
No one knew.
I keep it secret.
I dreamt of dirt.
Of its sloughing off under the tap.
But oh, the horror of the pores
that extruded anew
a brackish paste,
a troubling stew.
And here I thought
my virtue bought,
until this taste
the nightmare wrought.
And a stern bellowing voice said
~WASH YOUR HAND~
In you, I have dreamt
a glowering cloud bank
lowering to feather the fields.
Gloving the lava sun that waits
to cure the purchased rain.
In you.
What was the thing I saw
in the dimness of fog forest?
Tall and straight and still it stood,
its head bowed in supplication.
Its person was that of a dark Angel,
and the flowing mists imparted
an artist’s brushstrokes to it.
In my awe, it saw me not,
for it was of another world.
Were I able to paint or draw,
and had not seen you,
even for a year,
I would find joy in the task,
and have at it until I was
well and truly spattered
with remembered colours.
As it is, I will dress down.
Take up pencil or crayon.
Something erasable.
Dissociative. When I was but a young stranger, my train rolled slowly through an area of wilderness. Muskeg, tilted tamaracks, power towers. And I thought not of my destination, but of wanting to paddle a canoe into that green buzzing haze. And I myself would find the answer.
I know why you couldn’t shave anymore
I used to think that you could
but needed to be touched
I think, now, that something told you
“What’s the use?”
and you agreed
and your hands and knees agreed
and next morning
your shrunken head
could think only of hard rivers of nerves.
Aremyfeetofftheground 