Clumsy Metaphor
a glass dropped
on kitchen floor
swept into dustpan
assembled
into a human body
by a human body
this is how desire
this is how
my life spent
broken spilled
how I bleed
at the edge of you
Ode to the Oceans’ Many Plastic Patches
disappointing-ass way to kill the planet if you ask me
no music in it at all
what if instead convenience
wasn’t god
when I was eleven I joined the world
learned all the wrong lessons
about what matters
still unlearning
(not really)
mostly my problems have to do with hunger
mostly my problems have to do
I don’t litter
haven’t littered
in years but there was a brief period
when I bought cigarettes on my way home from work
did not smoke them
threw the pack out the window mistaking
this for freedom
I guess I got away with it
anyway the idea of these plastic patches
it’s fucking terrible
shittiest detritus of the shittiest century
look the numbers are too big for a body to hold
gyre of waste three times the size of France
how big can France even be
I did learn to slice the rings from a six-pack
still do
for the seals, you know
mistake is thinking we can save anything
such pleasure in not smoking
only if you have the cigarettes in your hand first
don’t mean to sound hopeless
don’t know how else to end this
don’t know how else it ends
Ode to My Stupid Mouth
My mouth has no idea we’re in a pandemic.
My mouth cannot stop dreaming about sex.
My mouth’s fatal flaw is hunger. My mouth
is the maple limb that storm-splintered
into the backyard overnight, wrecking nothing.
It is a sidewalk splattered with wet forsythia petals,
sticky & fading. It is the lightning,
the thunder, the drench. My mouth is not the same age
as the rest of my body. The rest of my body
is a paper sack of bleached flour —
it cannot be refolded neatly, cannot stop spilling.
My mouth is a map of all my desire, is the red circle
around the towns I have lived in,
is beauty mark & mole, bite & scar
& bitter grudge. It remembers everything.
My mouth is a country that cannot stop
hurting its citizens. My mouth is ghost,
monster, dinosaur. The rest of my body
curls into quarantine but my mouth is outside
looking for someone to kiss. My mouth
will promise anything you ask,
go anywhere you want it to. My mouth
is responsible for every lie I’ve ever told,
my mouth wants to confess & be forgiven
as if that is love: tonguing language
into the world in hopes it comes back changed.
