October
brings forty fly carcasses
big shining dog eyes
memories of the Friary
walnut-stained fingernails
and an obsession with the
taking apart, the un-do-ing.
Where is it that you are?
Prague, perhaps, pack
hiked up above your hip bones.
I’d never met myself before,
now I rearrange words
poke at them til they like
each other. My doors are open
but the wind doesn’t sting
I miss the sea but the lakes are
Great enough; sad little adages.
I keep finding new chambers
of my brain— pericarp yielding
to a fleshy segment where I
can crawl deeper, see more.
I collect leaves and hide them
in there, hoping the walls
protect them from rot
I’ve got to have a tale wound
round my pinky finger,
golden like your signet ring.
The shivers begin in the bladder
and the longer I go without cutting
my hair the more I cannot cut it.
The weekends come and fall,
it gets cold, no longer lark time
I curl deeper into the blankets
Write shorter sentences to conserve energy
And we share a nameless secret
that glistens in our silence.
