floating and leaving no trace
i have learned the hard way
that just because something
has been buried does not mean
it’s dead
i have seen enough
late night tv to know
that which emerges in the dark
having tarried long underground
is always hungry
for what is thickening in your
skull like rendered fat
self-immolation is the only
defense against these
plutonian horrors
why do you think the norse gods
preferred it to burial
no one grows up hoping
to be a cannibal
or his dinner
——
she opens her mouth
a bird escapes
some magic trick
silent bird
with its beak
welded shut
by shame
by trauma
–haaaaaaaaaaaa–
the sound
you breathe out
through your mouth
the sound of wings
you can’t breathe and lie
at the same time, girl
——
the lights begin like christmas
reds blues greens
but soon enough
become misty ghosts
floating in great oceans of black
that swallow the ground
lone fires dot the silent sea
and the horizon burns
while the voices
roar
themselves waves
rolling in tar
drowning flames
the sun takes so long
to vacate the sky
the coyotes never appear
step to the rim
even the silence
here
at the edge
is quiet
pregnant enough to make
your ears hurt
until a bee buzzes past
the magic spell of
all the clocks being ground
into rust-colored dust
breaks
a bubble sucking in on itself
and suddenly you hear the wind
the air leeches the moisture from my skin
and my eyes burn in this attempt
at paradise in the desert
rabbits emerge from bushes long enough
to catch a glimpse of us then retreat
a white cotton flash to their kin
i step on sidewalks not the rust red earth
water sprays from sprinklers
and i wonder about the green when i come
from a land of drought
the wind stings my eyes
a lone rabbit–maybe the smallest of them all
has no fear
and for her i am afraid
i hear a rustling
like dried leaves
caught in a hot wind
coming from the spare room
i surprise my father
in the act of changing clothes
though silent
he seems angry
mouth clenched closed
like a vise
eyes squinting in judgment
you know you’re dead, right?
next year
he will be one hundred years old
and has been haunting me
from house to house for almost
a quarter of that century
both he and the clothes
are transparent
and when i remind of
of his non-corporeal state
he loses the angry look
though burly in life
he shrugs his grave-thin shoulders
fades away
with the sound of a brittle page
of an old book being turned
the invisible woman repeats numbers
like those soviet radio stations
my head fills with curvilinear
whorls of snail shells and fingerprints
the smell of cigarette smoke that is not
from a cigarette seeps into my garage
as i put clothes in the laundry basket–
–this night is coming to a close
and i am still knotted up like a boy
scout’s shoelaces
it will take a sharp pair of scissors
to release me
consider the old saying
that every time a bell rings
an angel gets its wings
and think of all the times
you have heard a cash register chime
or the wall street stock exchange
or a fire alarm
or the low slow clangs of cowbells
as they are led to the slaughterhouse
what the hell are those angels making
their feathers out of
misery, greed, blood and fire?
i have always preferred birdsong
an earthly tune to be sure
unfettered yet surrounded by sky
even if it is all about territory
and sexual conquest
and where the best worms are
everything must slope downward
water will roll down the
smallest of
inclines
the silent moon will fall forever
toward an earth fleeing it
for a much larger light
my words circle the
drain before
reaching
you
Words and Feathers 