Riverbed

I want to feel how real
this muddy bottom is.
i want to dagger my toes
and sink them deep in its
watery womb. I want to
feel how real the fish
are on my skin, wear them
like diamonds, like fur.
I want to be eased
by the un-treed breezes that
shift and groan dsown here, that
bend and moan down here.
I want to hear the silence
beating its fin-thin wings.

I want to stand beneath
the undulating sky and
give up last breaths,
give up last breaths,
give up last breaths,
buried before I die.

Ma Mere

I broke him
into 1200
cigarettes,
1200 perfect
plastic placentas,
1200 weeks
from the week
that I broke him.

I broke him
into ceramic sky,
into olive jungles,
into sea salt,
into light,

into lions,

into light.
I broke him
with a wide-
toothed comb,
with a rake,
with a sentence.

I broke him
like a vase
on my suicide box,
and my last eye
watched rainbows
sunshone
through the prism
of his skin.

Metaphor for My Mother

My mother is an apple tree.

we

fall

close

we, her golden red delicious
we, her pie cider sauce
we, her stem core skin.
My mother is an apple tree.
She knows what it’s like to hold us,
to have us harvested.

My mother is a carnival.

up

right

step

to her cotton candy lungs
her Ferris wheel face
her rollercoaster limbs.
My mother is a carnival.
She is the pieces mirrors and beagle-tongued
barker who holds our tickets at the gate.

My mother is a mountain lake

beautiful

quiet crater cold with water
silk like milk and wings
opal-chested swan of the treacherous crags
My mother is a mountain lake,
liquid hands hard enough to still hold
five rivers by the tail.

Sigh

If there are rabbit holes,
Chinks in the wall,
I'll find them.
I'll weave my body through them
Like wicker.

So when the wind blows
Through me, you'll
Hear me,
Little wooden screams.