loosed

i want this word to make it
if wrapped in paper
folded corner to corner
smoothed,
stamped,
would the cost in coin not do
better?
it flutters.
the seam gasps.
a damp feather,
a crust of bark for veneer,
and the moon of my fingernail
that came off with it?
it banks
like a gull.
fishing line weights,
shavings of rust
and bread,
a half-hollowed back tooth,
a wad of chocolate spit,
drawn blood with a sewing needle
pinned through vowels.
will it go
straight and stick?
i want this word to make it
bangled and tattooed
totemed and tabooed

Anemoi

a holy wind arrives
gathers the shaking all
buries terror in her roaring heartbeat
altogether more gently than she came
drains ache, heart and all,
from her left arm.

record keeper

i sort our things
i catalogue
bodies
counted
into a pit
porches
swept for
arriving tenants
i practice interviews
in a mirror
i practice saying
no to demons.

first secret

ladders of afternoon light

you could strip under

losing your shirt felt like losing

nothing at all

losing your way, nothing

stepping through barbed rungs

rust in hand

straining a prayer slow and sure

bare spine cool

house at your back, far behind

ribs softening in the sun slide

fallow field

you were not to cross,

but that

you would

icarus and lucifer

eclipses bare teeth
strike mine
my
how large
are
we who plummet
pummel
plumb
earth

live idol

shipped my weight in gold
zagging mountainsides, dodging passes
now carried openly
straightening streets
a graven image to be struck down for

when bearers bungle that weight
will it walk or lie
broken stubs of poetry, bone, heart fossil-
a rock once bone -

sweep and peddle grubby bricolage
tinkering for distance
and never return,
re zagging mountainsides, dodging passes.

smooth edges

taut cirrus clouds squeeze star
light onto my skin
i have tramped out to be seen
and shored up as the moon
burnished and hayed field.