Value Theory
Maybe the body I prefer sits between two singing birds, like the song
itself. Because people are used to comparing women and songs,
maybe it’s necessary to say, I’m not. I’m interested in the communal making
of like things, which happens to be a song in this instance.
Or the scent after one rosemary bush as I approach another I
cloned from the first. I don’t like rosemary. I love the thing I can make
again and again from itself. The way, for two years, every chicken
is a golden goose. Collect the eggs. Then you eat it.
I used to think it was brutal, how Lolo lost his fingers at the Hitachi
factory, but he lived long enough to collect SSI. People I admire
believe we can survive the number of days before
retirement. Really I tried, but it only takes one coworker death
to lose faith in your pension. Every day after, I obsessed
over how easy it should be to survive an office building. Connect this
to what we know about time. Every minute I’m happy now
makes me happy later. Mom’s best friend used to report all the days
Dad spent at the beach. When she sold the beach condo, she said,
Maybe Bill got it right. I mean, he never kept any money
but he got to spend a lot of days at the beach. After
she could no longer distinguish between Mom’s face and mine,
she’d talk to me about the beach she missed and Bill, whom she remembered.
Maybe the Body is a Loved One
Even the chimera has siblings and children
she resembles. Her lover has a hundred
minds, all of them snakes that emit
fire and every kind of noise. Her children
come out almost all lion, barely any snake,
no remaining goat. Her daughter
speaks and has human breasts. But sits
like a four legged creature. She conceives
questions instead of children, so want is some
undeveloped skill that mirrors the skills she has.
If asked to describe the sphinx, we’re given
the limbs. From animals, she sits at the dining table
with one leg up on the chair, knee to chest.
Wading into the River Beneath the Interstate
A germination space. Then, the glass
between what you love today and what you loved
yesterday. Vibrant, rich actions. Vibrant, rich
growth. After Eden, everyone goes home.
To plant seeds. To say we love the unrelenting
aspects of the world and carry them with us
into its aftermath, which is full of potential.
You are rebuilding the garden someone taught you
to love. Tucked into the erosion (The river at work.
At work, semi trucks above us. How do you decide
which of your parts you won’t submerge in freshwater?)
on the bank, a bird rebuilds her nest above
the tideline. Mothers say, happiness is inherited.
Sometimes the garden is made of stones.
Care first. Decide about love later.
