first gift

a wall.
bare,
beige.
catch your heat.
press you cool.
and outside,
rain.

feast

there's red beans on the stove again, and
i will always eat your red beans.
even when i say i'm going to go
vegan for a week or so or
even when i think i've got to
quit loving you for a moment now.

boil

citronella candles at the back of my calves
i pinch exoskeletons between thumb
and forefinger wet with lips salted and swollen

it was uncle mac who dropped the lemons
cut the celery and poured the cayenne.
whose curled lip smile teases, "you don't like it,"

uncle mac dances the way mr. Kunitz,
rolled up the sleeves of his starched shirt.
limbs suspended sacred, each movement so
precise it cuts the most invisible air.

anger

this might be the day
where i can't write a poem.

sunday

the morning was singeing
oatmeal caught in her throat
one whole round grape.

spill.

the seasick cure in terrebone parish,
used to be two swigs, full
off the bayou.

but that little girl grew up,
had to get paid
followed the men who
dredged the black water, searching
for another one's prodigal return.

now politicians-turned-doctors
pray she'll sweat out the toxins
caught under her her palms
when she gathered their clothes
and squeezed their hands.

stowaway

touch

kiss

press

urge

reach 

embrace

melt sing stomp

kiss, again

dance

linger

tongue.

there is a piece

of gingerbread

that you put in your bag

wrapped carefully in paper

almost too rough for the task.

you put it there to save for later.

remember that. 

love letter

the crease between your eyebrows
is redeemed when you weep.
it wants to say that you
are a person of great sadness,
after all.

gratitude

i was blowing the wet off of horsehair
while the white pelicans gathered
by your boat

for the sun that dropped softness
on cold gripping fists,
and the fish that circle themselves
for the slaughter,
this.

IFF

i remembered the lot full of traffic lights.
it was on the other side of the rouse's.

you were going to new york, you said. it made
sense, you said, things being in relation as they are.

now here we are. concrete splayed spindles stretch
across the canal you won't cross unless straddling--
belly down could barely stomach the sight of the drop,
and we don't need that kind of bravery this morning.

rather turn the corner under construction zone and over
the highway, come in through the back, so when we arrive
here, at the lot full of traffic lights, we are no where
near the rouse's. where, then, will you go?

and now

this midnight, while
arranging each one's
magazines and
bank statements, and
post cards scraps of papers,
i was reminded of my mother, who
would say of this or that flat thing,
it's probably in a pile somewhere.
words that never struck me as
anything but archaelogical:
precise, with the insight of
an entire geologic column.
god, herself, i must have thought.

anxiety

this tiring thing,
to trace each trauma--
broken capillaries, scaly fingers
itchy lips and that ear's slight
humming--trace it to
the trough where it drinks, so
i can fill up on it, too, then
crow can crow my own death's caw.

the news

my blood delights
in its porcelain tumble all
the more so to know
that yours has stopped
--been stopped--
by another's hungry mouth.

into the shower, i am thinking.
what about our film? i think.
will i wear all of her pants? i think.

on the asphalt, i am feeling
you in my feet. i am knowing
you in my hands, and what things
we are capable of, eli. now this

if this is drag racing:

seven hundred amplified zippers
with the bass blown out.
HOTEL PARKING ONLY
does somersaults in yellow-flooded light,
while under pavement is cracking
that last best spun story.

sleepy two

then i am was again,
looking for new ways to stand.
accounting  for   each   thing
individually.
now i am falling a sleep, but i am laughing!
laughing to think of all the water.
and i stood among it!

tired two.

dry fuzzy toes
and hot sweaty eyes.
the better to dance with you,
my dear.
we'll have to stand close
we will never need slippers.

overlook

thank you for kissing the earth when even the ground spun up above you,
so hard your husk filled with blood just to not pull away.
thank you for stretching and pressing yourself
into the hard knotty shafting of salt-rotted wood,
as if you were putty.
but you're not putty,
which is why i

training

we gained the speed off ground,
leaping.
my single blood blister
your fear of blindness.
orbits around an eye        a foot.
in each gesture,
each a storm.

to the cypress of bayou bienvenue

in death become a cradle
an arching reach of antlers.
who would believe your roots,
when the sky suspends you so?

take five.

outside where adam and anthony smoke,
someone's sacred bells are shaking.
cyclically, incessantly, through speakers.

when we go inside we are singing.
"hare krishna. hare krishna.
krishna krishna. hare hare."
then spitting
into the backs of our throats.