poem: berlin reparations (meditations in quarantine)

a before-i-die listfor the after:a faux jewish girlstanding in lattice shadow—the town-squarein café colors,un-expressed dims. because weare a dream, the Eiffel Toweris a historical shadowabove; the girlleans against. she is smoking—pivotally, the ash blurring upwards,the ash of other peoplenot her people; she cannot makechallah bread, the necessary prayers;her body is woundin riot history: her peopleare…

poem: my grandmother’s (mystical) first love

he was the type of boyi dreamed about saving —a pretty wraith, oddly colored:black hair, black eyes — a mad rememberingbetween us, when i satin the soft shitting yellowof his apartment, his facerewording, compressing—like a poem in the physical actof being written, movingquickly backwards, the meaningskittering over itselfwith braver, bolder attempts.he was the spirit hung…

poem: the critical reading of innocents

the rising, falling, rollicking –what is american, what is americanliterature: they sit on stools,with feet tucked, crossedat the ankles, girls with milkshakesmiles, whipped-cream eyes –they are the Far and Away, gloryfalling like boys in foreign fields, writing homewriting mothers – i miss youi love you, i will be back.the people reading the bookshave missed it…

poem: autumn / catch me i’m falling

highschool-me listened to far awaymusicals, the rx a foreign and edgy thing, everything sex, men smilingand cum dripping out; now the normalis redone and i watch – ravens land on old buildings,the turrets gothic, lined against the fall;nothing is magic – not the rawcoming in calendars, the daysfalling into vampire schedules, five a.m. blinking, late…

poem: september mental illness

is it fall? —outside the madhouse windows?i have not showeredin three days, but i would liketo let the air cut me, the trees loose — danse —the new and old risingtogether: foreign dramasin dead worlds, patchinggardens, spirits in oldbooks, old spells —the split apple on my lip,wet like sex,dark and strange like innocence. i would like —to wash myself…

poem: the millennium after

this is how it goes: we sat in the blue grey and i licked your nose, nostrils twitchinglike cats: whiskered fuckerslapping at my milk. you pulled the sheetsfrom my breasts and climbedinside me, like we are some grand city —what did i call it? the sex life of the centuryresurrected between your handsand my getting…

poem: strangers far away and very close

girl looking out a windowdo you remember Rennes—where the stars— almost bloomed?where men cut themselvesfor eternal random truth;saying: i miss the dysfunction,the late, exploding nightsyour hand in my mouththe spiraling, the fights;girl looking out a windowis he caught in your head?—the boy over the ocean, his hands pulled into squareslet the riot fall— and find…

poem: last night i finished everything

champagne—good morning—celebrating the art of putting words on tonguesand speaking blackberries,raw crescents, the dovesin the trees and the hair;their feathers, the formulists,foucault and the prisons,men going free, the eye going mad. we could be anything—we could be silver bubblescoming up fast,exploding in today— today— today.

poem: tragedy to introduction and rondo capriccioso

fall is saint-saëns, it is slipping offsilk dresses and leather gloves,hands cut on the dashboardand hair mussed,leaving her body like curtainshung over the seat—his tongue spiced,her cigarette sparking, sexcut and served cold;the air is brimmingthe music rimming up—i counted your sallow face in the crowdthe day i left,over the top,for glory and saint george andall…

poem: pornographic europa

i met you under the meter-blockwith madness in my head—you pulled out— my spinal cord,you thought, you asked, i said. love comes down, i guess,to this: the ramones and black mornings,your hand in the mooring,my chemise and semenin the painting, the submissions—a literary edition of two peopleliving nicely, the prague-parissplit: we'll have sexand call it…