International Exhibit of Rubber and Other Tropical Products

Heart-holes, like James'

can be grown out of,

can be grown into.

He talked of the 1921 World's Fair,

his tongue forgetting the 

picket-fence front-teeth buried

behind the cemetery gate,

beneath the granite headstone,

so that as he "wrrrrr"ed, by the time

he "llllll"ed, it was too late: the unruly

tongue would be punished by the

moonshine in the brown bag he kept poised

just above his bouncing paper-thin brown-trousered knee.

A baby.

His baby.

He, as baby.

My heart-hole expanded and shifted

to make room for James and 1921

the world

the moon

the water

the me

Space for a universe stood

still.  Breath barely moving my

hallowed frame.                          Waiting.                                   My

emptiness starving, its jaw

disconnecting

acrobatically back-bending to encapsulate me with

James

1921

the world

the moon

the water

midnight foxtrots and toddles 

skating on prohibitive ice sculptures

November - December - January - February - until

we lost our teeth

Don't go without ( )

The coffin disintegrated around me, me reborn with

golden locket stitched to sternum: inside

a heart thumping: then, closed and clasped, kept safe, soon over-grown with

woman's breasts, mother's breasts

breasts milking bathtub moonshine to 

infant conductor of the racing, 

desperate jazz band.

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Anthology of Elegies

Should have put this up a bit ago...our last assignment was to write in another student's voice. We drew names. I should hassle the gal who got mine and get that up here. It was interesting hearing other people talk about a style they found in my writing.

I took about half a dozen pages of notes trying to figure this gal's form out; she's super talented and didn't read that much in class, hard combo. The predominant theme I found was vocab, she uses this great vocabulary, but I'm not sure how much she says. This is based mostly on the century she read in class and I remember getting totally lost and had no idea what the point was, but I felt in a very beautiful place all the same.

I still feel like a jackass that 'big words' was my guiding tool to writing Vania.
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Closeted, the anthology of elegies I've sewn on your many sleeves while standing tip-toed to transcribe the rhythms of your chest. These oxygenated eyes see aching groans of inhales and anhedonic cries of exhales beneath woven fortresses, beyond epithelial stone walls, through marrowed prison bars. We pass cacophonic codes through needles, via emergent transfusions, clandestinely; tattletaling guards stand at every gate. The tactility of my tasteful tongue speaks Braille better than I. The shifting tectonic plates, active fault-lines of your otological structures hear signs better than you. What lengths, what languages, simply to ask how your head rested last night.
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Ed and I Chew Differently

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always biting off more than i can chew becomes
hazardous when locked jaw has no key and
i must learn how long egg and hooks take
to disintegrate in cavern of spit and milk and 'spro.

knowledge never wasted.

happy holidays from brownie-blinged grill.
happy birthday from champagne-shined enamel.
aloysius lilius' calendar replaced by
columns and rows of bottles and brews and
bins of dirty dishes. they say 'monday'
some say 'makersday.'

(what is the need of shooting-starry colorado nights, with sheetcake and coffee to rest beneath?)

soft diet keeps jaw loose, keeps

secrets public record, keeps teeth receptive to etiquette tips:

* smaller bites, more food

* swallow, then speak

* back of hand to cover front of mouth when

laugh/sneeze/yawn cannot be temporally displaced

*molars for leafy mastication, not revenge

*tongue to distinguish savory/salty/sweet/sour,

not to lash/discipline/howl/hang

must be his ancient ancestral blood, grace in marrow that

does not fortify my bones,
bones of aryan hand stretching

skin's napkin, porous enough to wipe

renegade sauce from gaping corners of

renegade aryan mouth,

mouth full of half-chewn wisdom and rice.
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