Poetry

In a bathtub / rimmed in lime / basil salts, I take / a spoon

I used to sew / along the edge of my body / – to interrupt / the Mare unraveling / my stitched skin.

There are two elements: / The voice and the wilderness of / Ocean — both thoroughly defined / though one, more wholly —

there is a sun behind you as hollow as the sound from / within your claims to the land it sets on kranti weeps not within

I am tremendous fun at dinner parties / I say this as a joke but it’s true, I talk / and hardly pause for breath, a ticking metronome / of story punchline setup story and only rest a moment

When they decided to kill the priest it was winter / and they wanted it slow. They led him out barefoot / to a steaming pot, and had us each take turns / dipping an enormous ladle, black from other hands.

i sometimes think that everything that has ever happened to me / is raining somewhere else. i sometimes think that the water has found / a path through high trees, worked its way inside another room, so the damp / next door is spreading, curving an unknown ceiling into a misshapen moon.

-Savage! / You read my poems and tore the pages. / -… / Mute / Ir-rational / a Chinese poem played on the speakers. / Black dirty pots on the hob.

did you hear about the time mom danced all night in prague? / she was in love with a saxophone player and, by proxy, / all saxophone players. jazz made her feel alive and warm even as / the snow fell on cobbled roads and she and paulina left faint trails

Going in with her, she made sure / there was a notebook and pen / in her bag, so she could write / down stuff they might forget.

I thought you were something / But you are nothing. / Not nothing, but not the thing / I want you to be.

When I returned, I was different. I was cold all the time, / wore wool against my skin. The shock of it / stayed with me into summer.

Here is a moment / from the lives of ancient kings, / their high thrones on either hand.

Six years, three hundred and sixty-four days / since we laid the long wreath of white lilies, / roses and spray carnations on the mound of soil

Tonight / I Facebook / under-share / a million / thoughts / imploding / in my brain

The elder sister / eats a bloated honeybee, / pinches it between her fingers, / brings it to her lips, and sucks / it down her throat, stinger / and all.

You said that thirty was the new / twenty / just like love was the new / war. / I failed to see the difference before.

talking with my historian is / throwing up at the art museum / descending a staircase nude / emerging from a well

Never speak to me / of things without soul / they don’t do it for me / or for you.

A day will come / in which you will / ask me why I love you. / I will answer / with the only image of you I know

You resist. / I hear it still / your heart / sobbing down / muted streets / in search of / an escape route.