snow, come sleep,
Bleach our red curtains
To surrender. O molester,
Put the animals to bed.
Bed the trees;
Rid us of forecast.
Calm the alabaster
Masts of dream.
Come dream, snow,
Bear in the cavern,
Rat in the cistern.
Every little chit in its hole.
Make us kid-glove clean again,
Intestines fresh from the fast.
Lay out your skin to swaddle our feet,
Snow madonnas maquillaged in ash.
WINTER, FRONTAL LOBE
Dark where Dad chops a hole.
Tunk. Dark hair blighted
by snow bees, his axe
trepanning the tarn’s top.
Beneath what’s frozen
slighted bodies blob up
from the din. Kraken, Leviathan,
the pail in my hand’s a cauterized
aluminum stump.
Heave-ho to make the lake
gawp up at us. Heave again
to plunge the bucket
benthic deep.
Leave down the glum machine
(my arm-and-pail rocking-horse rig).
Winter’s everywhere profusion.
Huddle over its sink:
head congested, festooned
with weeds. Mother is nuts.
The mind’s an organ
of slush. Ahusha.
His axe can’t cleave
this confusion.
SYMPTOMS INCLUDE DISINHIBITION
In lusting after
their son, Sandy remembers
her husband, young.
I’M ON A GIBBET, FONDLING MY FINE WORKMANSHIP
In the brume
of hangover
I dog-paddle
day. The oasis
of convalescence
appears solely
via nostalgia.
At the node
when I rake
back damp
hair, erosion
ratchets my gut.
Who’s tut-tutting?
The bile
rinding my skin’s
benign. In
every pang
a bullet of yin –
wine’s its own
antidote. Beyond
its obvious notes,
oak, fog, neap
tide, daily bread –
alone at night,
I Sandy the bed.
MOM’S SISTERS’ DAUGHTERS
Navy blue in the hall.
Five and five doors
and blue navy rising,
rising under the underslots.
Five and five doors framing ten rooms,
each with a woman in bed,
each with a woman sleeping.
Each with a yawning
window, each with a lamp, doused.
Across from each, a mirror.
•
The navy’s loud as wheezing. Ah aha.
Mountains climb beyond the window.
Ten and ten arms circling pillows,
not other bodies in their beds.
Ten and ten hands frigid with sweat.
Oceans rime beyond the window.
Women solo, tucked into themselves.
Rooms drenched in exhales.
The navy sounds, their breasts.
On thermals, birds beyond windows.
•
A pug scrubs himself along carpet.
Room to room he marks
spurts of darkness
under each underslot.
Women’s cheeks pillow-creased,
ten women ferning themselves.
Mouths awe
to navy tongues.
•
Navy blue thick in the hall
as navy grackles, clotting. They hoist
