She lies
on the beach

She lies
on the beach
on a towel the
colour of sand

She lies
on the beach
on a towel
made of sand
becoming the
colour of sand

She lies
on the beach
she is made
of sand
water takes
her bit by bit

She is
the beach
water takes
and gives back

She is
the beach

who is splashed green growing
between sidewalk & street

who makes soil so
even concrete blooms

who knows your breath
its percentage

who is not much
is everything

who is before & is after &
will grow here & where

who sees but doesn’t
least expects

In the dream your room is full of flame and
I leave my fingerprints on the knob and
I leave my footprints on the hardwood and
I look and look and I cannot find you and
I ask myself if I need to leave you and
I ask myself if I should go with you

In the dream’s dream
You are standing on the front lawn and
Your lungs fill up with clean air and
Your skin uncindered smells of detergent and
Your bones hidden and flesh-clothed and
You don’t slip through my fingers

The words are to find out what
The words are for

The story is that
The story is told

To tell it is
To tell it how to be

To read it you have
To read it into it

To circle the sentence
“To circle the sentence” makes the

Ends meet that we make to make
Ends meet

Did you think,

This small room inside my chest
Is airless, Is becoming the dark

Bruise of space, Is not becoming
But is

The god, the phenelzine
Who would not take you back

Fled up into the rafters
And that is what you are doing there

Trying, blue with effort
Ascending to it

The fox threads near
A bright liquid

My heart
My breath
Struggle to escape to explode

I reason with them:
We will breathe
Tomorrow

As the coyote passes
A serrated stream

Another day
Unnoticed

Her head lilts side to side
A scanner feral

Another day
Just another day

i love without warning
seeing you

not you of course
but you

by now a present tenth
slight

a room full of misplaced things
cornered

in the shimmering slough
of old ambitions

speaking
brightly as you must

in quests and calls
the most important thing is that you walk through the fire

unchanged
yourself always yourself

i love out of nowhere
hearing you

not lies of course
but lies

I can see if this weren’t as now
myself at the far wall

my fingers thread a lunatic fringe
seventy-two bells say nothing, nothing

true love wades hip-deep into it
a moment in traffic

says hello, says how are you,
says, and then the coma

days and days and days later, it awakes
expecting your fingers which are my fingers

but instead clear plastic tubes filled with clear plastic liquids
drip

at the far wall seventy-two machines
scribble nothing, nothing

as they pour concrete into
it

the scapegoat
rises

beneath his feet
the instruments of death

the principalities
& powers

in his arms
voiceless who cry out

under the altar
victims who cry out

from clotted soil
blood that cries out

they point
at me

a spear still barberous
with water & blood

i who whipped
i who hammered
i who pierced
i who gambled the scraps

the scapegoat rises
and says yes

even
him