mysteries

cresting, creasing into...

like that last moment between waking & sleep

when we remember how to trust...

ghosts scrambling into

recitations: will you still love me when i

disappoint you? will you? will you?

there's somethin shocking about

the newborn (goats!)

that knock-kneed unknowing

fur that is butter-soft, almost-summer-soft

bleating for milk

we older ones:

curds clinging to the 

corners of mouths

(some kind of sour, years turning, 

heat and cycles and thickening)

watchin the little ones battle their mother for her body as she parades away their jaws and sounds lolling i thought their mouths were full of blood except really it's the color, raw freshest red,
tongues that are only three days enchanted by this world. 

cry & beg for hot life running down yr throat while

the stillborn feeds the mud.

Telling the same story, another way

ate all the fruit candy - didn't taste like fruit...scuse me sorry (need a minute, need six minutes, need six hours, need twelve-thirteen-fourteen hours)...ate all the caramel popcorn - tasted mostly of salt...should i say something about the ocean though let's be honest, if we're honest, it's been said

between drinking all the soda and finding the cookies on that high shelf (sometimes I stand on chairs) FOUND OUT what tub thumps up against the solar plexus, what shakes up the insides is simply a collection of space anthems by space girls like weird, alienated reverberations distant cold, but i mean really distant-far-away-underwater

just enough distance, just enough space between so no one has to feel challenged because let's be honest, if we're honest, there were always wary glances between us from one to the other when neither of us were looking or looking at other things like the lamp or the mug or the scarf on the floor, honing in our beams on the mug-lamp-scarf (still space objects, freezing surfaces having been invaded by the vacuum, to keep us from getting too warm)

because, again on the theme of honesty, it's abject terror that fuels us (after all what if I/you am actually just the blanket on this bed?), shoveling crunchy pot stickers from that one terrible restaurant, over/undercooked lentils, veggies with the bad bits cut off, and pasta pasta pasta, noodles noodles noodles, rice (and still candy that says it tastes like lychee, apple, mango, peach), squealing squelching tummies quietened - just a replacement really, for the fact that my/your sentimental attachment converts itself to a desire to crack open my/your jaw and force your/my head into my/your mouth WHOLE

tippy-toed on the kitchen chair fingers scrabbling around on an unseen shelf looking for crackerscookieslollipopshardcandiesgumtictacstinychocolatevodkagin filling up the bottles with a little bit of water just to make sure no one notices that i had that drink to fall asleep at a regular hour (my tummy hurts and I lay face down on the bed so my organs don't feel too squished) - the thought, "uh um um um um uh, ouch, really, ouch" wiggles into my brain

so stop...

oops

my belly is empty
and the house is noisy (hammers and finger nails)
and i am thinking about michael collins

who got to the moon but didn't even get out of the car

sweet Mike they called him on earth
on the army bases where his dad served
because he was unfailingly polite
and always held the door open
waiting even if you were miles away
at least now he's the director of the national air and space museum

the hammer and fingernails are ringing forth
rapping-tapping-drumming
who said to stephen, "stephen your politeness will be the death of you"
who said hamlet was a retiring book-worm?
who said the cosmos breathed in and out of that moment?
who ever said, "oh pardon me" and didn't lose the war?

so here's me joining up.
up for whatever ranks it is that we're marching in these days
sure, sure
the angel-headed hipsters
sure, sure
smeared in effluvia
sweating and stinking
please
please
please
i will be --> that
do they serve stars in the mess hall?
i hear they do
(re)assure me they do?
because i want to eat the fiery dust and purple mist of the outer reaches of the galaxy and wash them back with the drippings of trickling rings of planets i have never seen before and smear on top of my celestial toast cream cheese from so many light years away it has taken generations to bring back and i want to learn to pronounce names of foods that contain syllables i didn't know existed and have to relearn all sorts of glottal stops to grapple with

please?

am i asking too much?