A bottle and Styrofoam container against the passionflowers
the silver-streaked scrub hopper, took to the chestnut light:
what we resist, breathlessly we visit in our sleep
like the Fritillary among the bog, drawn from long nectar pints:
when I was born, I stood origin-less like the hunger along the Rio Grande.
Among the stray flight on brush stalk, a selective mutism
reticulated, variegated, an artifact that crossed from Mexico
from Sonoran folkloric sustenance, and in the gulf, chestnut sunlight,
stamped out an unseen pirouette, breathless, like a Cordera
sung to later generations struggling to resist, inherited
on a day-laborer’s rucksack, Regal Fritillaries disappeared from the East
in the late 1970s; now a Calvary belts out in strands along abandoned Forts
near dried-cracked Pastures: the softest part of a rose preexisted
the emerging violets in their fragility last forever:
no one noticed, not even in a eulogy, when the last one dropped. …
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At first, the grief was bare, an unsheathed sword,
its presence sharp. But then it turned, slowly,
into a faded tattoo on a hidden part of my body.
I tried calling your phone last night.
I don’t know what I expected, but I was scared.
When I’m dripping in too much darkness,
that same profound, welling of sadness finds me.
It appears in the strangest places; in the back
of my throat, at the roots of my heart. These moments
are punctuated by the smell of oolong tea, memories
of getting drunk off Blue Wave Vodka at Brian’s house, hiding
from the cops in your car. But you’re gone, you’ll never read this.
When I found out, I ate an edible and laid on my couch for 20 hours,
trying to wrap my mind around it, but it was just you,
swallowing lemon seeds, presenting your empty mouth,
tongue drawn out toward me, the pride you had in that moment,
the laughs that filled our empty stomachs, the crows feet on your
face when you smiled, like footprints in the snow.…
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I finish book drafts,
a dedication, footer-pagination.
I tuck and roll
a few final arrangements
neatly justified. Suburban life
similar in its style
manuals stream-lining formal
editing and copy. Writing
a respite with current
change in the air.
Shrinking margins offer burial
and discounts on ritual
exorcism. I frequently overuse
words – blood, song, “light” –
sometimes cradles the unborn
fragments of memory dimmed …
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Why do I cry?
I saw a jewel.
No heart, no bones
and nerveless in
the pink postcoital light—
I am nowhere near done,
so you say
imagine an animal—
and I am taken
to the white core of
the Cambrian explosion,
bend in the heat and
emerge with an apple—
and we have bobbed in the tropics,
bobbed in the icy polar seas
and mindlessly scoured the floor—
stingers drawn
head and tail aglow with
Jamaica Farewell,
you catch a swell.
– Josh Lipson…
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I.
depression as the contained
The white ceiling above my bed is swirling
Into flowers and faces. I should probably look away
But looking away means acknowledging the swelling
Of my abdomen and that means acknowledging
The advice I’ve ignored—to go for brisk walks
To eat a tablespoon of hot sauce
To pray for the faith to be restored,
As if I haven’t already prayed till I cried as if
That isn’t why I’m too drained to do much else
To roll over, to press my feet into the stirrups,
To push. Who am I if not pregnant
With stagnancy and rot? Is there anything else?
This burning like nausea, this deep squeezing
Instinct to escape flooding my dirty sheets—
God it’s stuck
Like a seed in my teeth
An eyelash in my eye
A tumor on my abdominal wall, God
Cut me open.…
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Driving down the Interstate 27 from Phoenix
to the Grand Canyon in the middle of July,
cacti along the road flashing the finger.
Passing by Montezuma Castle – the ruin
that never saw the Indian chief around.
It’s time-honored tradition to name places
after men we killed. The land we inhabited
was too unforgiving to bury our dead in it.
Skies hung so alarmingly low that ancestors
weren’t able to walk upright – we lifted the skies,
gradually, generation after generation,
until they ceased to be a factor.
On the plateau gravity, water, and wind joined forces
curving castles out of rocks, chiseling images
that make you believe it couldn’t happen at random.
So please follow a few simple rules:
Do not talk loudly. Do not make eye contact with a rock.…
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It’s Monday night, and a car is blocking the dumpster
with the DO NOT BLOCK ON MONDAY NIGHT sign on it.
And there was never any hope that things would go as hoped.
Walking home from my job I wanted, on the morning of day one,
to love, I might as well be putting a book over my heart and allowing
the bullet through anyway. There was never any hope for such a thing
as being born to be ecstatic about everything.
The traffic at this intersection is just terrible. The little store
sells beer to minors. I’m out of gum. I refuse to go in there,
where the light of the world is so dim.
God knows when you’re in a rotten mood
you should just examine your knuckles,
as much as your skin will allow, get home
from your job, or wherever you’ve been,
and sit down and examine your invisible
prowess.…
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