Fur Coats
“It’s old fashioned, as stylish as a bed bug,
but it suits to die in something nostalgic”
- Anne Sexton
Commutes are the distances between
events. Some days I’m stuck with these
Black Mountain hipsters, pissing off
their North End balconies even on
a Tuesday. Some days I’m lost between
my headphones and my shoelaces
but today I think about Liam, and his
forehead—warm as bonfire embers
at daybreak upon the mouth of the cave
that is my sternum. Communication
is not the words but the act of conn-
ection between two distances. I wish
I knew how. Once, I was smart. I think
about the only four letters
I’ve written by hand and only to people
I’ve slept with. Someday I’ll be entombed
beneath the mountain of what I’ve intended
to write. I also think tonight of Marlene,
about how she died surrounded by her books
and bitter marginalia like a great pharaoh.
I never fantasize about car crashes
at night. Here, at the distance between some
events, I find myself inhabiting them:
Marlene’s books, or Anne’s fur coat,
or Virginia’s pocket, amongst the stones.
To be naked is just as much a uniform
as an accent
or a smile.
I’ve written six poems explicitly
about Ophelia, such as this one,
and only one about the Neponset River
and what it tastes like
but not how cold.
Gargoyles
“I see several bodies with one head and several heads
with one body… Surely if we do not blush for such absurdities,
we should at least regret what we have spent on them.”
- St. Bernard of Clairvaux, 12th century
I see the best of us burn through themselves
(the main sequence—wannabe stars)
fusing into dust, ouroboric for a brilliant
moment; then begins the burning.
gar: the French root meaning “to swallow”
the symptoms: a gargling (the perpetual
act of swallowing)
the doctors (that will see us) say
don’t cleanse that good shit:
the insulating mucus, the detrital
cushions of the feet, etc.
gar: the old Norse for “spear”
I see the best of us hack through
our jungles with a kitchen knife
defend our tenderness & sores
with a kitchen knife
our mothers & fathers bought egg separators
and racks for staling bread
while their children tighten
the bedroom’s loose screws
with a kitchen knife
and desecrate themselves
from limb to garish limb
in their apartments, with fingers
of charcoal, gurgling (the perpetual
act of bringing back up without vomiting)
everyone I know has a thing
for precipices. we cling to them like honey
aware of how the slightest rain
will smear us from gutter
to driveway
but God what an impression that’d leave.
Do not call this legion—
somewhere in this nest of heads and bodies
lives a hell of a lot of us
Chamomile & Jokes about Good Band Names
I just think it’s funny how those
concrete folks spread themselves
s o t h i n
and I think that’s so brave of you
I’m sorry
my palette’s the foot-ruts
worked into the steps of
a school’s stairwell
a million children’s trudges
I’m tired
my tongue settles too naturally
ii-V-I and three-to-five act arcs
and any cadence might settle me
these days
let me just once work on a thing
til it stains my nails like how coffee
or turmeric or onychomycosis or
age does
the copper of my doorknob they say
is antimicrobial and I hope so
I want no one to twist this
open the door and the air’s sucked out
hold me
there’s
something
going
down
here