Your Head Is a Cube

Funny. Not even
24 hours after
I tell you I don't
cry often,
I find myself
in the office bathroom
hunched over
the sink, tissue
in hand,
mascara running
into my nostril,
composure shaking
from my spine.
I wasn't planning
on smoking another
cigarette this early.
Yes, this feeling
is preverbal.
Yes, this is why
we scream
through the city
streets at night,
or make clicking
noises with our tongues,
pretend we are
wordless beasts, and roll
our eyes
with exclamation.
I want
to understand your ears
in relation
to your eyes,
chin. I want to know
how you became
so compassionate.
I want to know
how you love.
I want to know even
the darker parts of you,
the underside
of your elbow. I want
to know that this
wanting isn't
threatening,
like the salty calm
before the thunder
before the rain.

---
(k)

"I Like My Body When It Is With Your" Guest poet

By ee cummings

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh....And your eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new.

---
(k)

for you.

It's strange the way those old
songs begin to ring true-
I only have eyes-
I feel other people looking at me
wondering how I fit together
I am a strange creature with watercolor
arms and a sharper beak,
eyes so big they won't
seem to close, ever,
not even when you and I are
so close-
I tried it once,
tried to keep my eyes shut as our
tongues were measuring
each others' teeth,
but I couldn't
keep my lids down,
I couldn't not
take it all in,
the size of your irises,
the flat plane of your cheek.
I tell myself to
let go. Relax.
But my hands are too excited
to sit still-
they paw at you gently
as if asking for permission
as if violence
wasn't a turn-on
for either of us.

--
(k)

Swallow

As the plane was going down, he had all the symptoms of panic—a hysterical rush of endorphins, his skin flush with chemicals, a flash of nauseating disbelief, as the reality that death was actually upon him, all around him, in him—but he suppressed it, tried to control the panic as best he could because, even in that brief moment, he knew that panicking would not help him, could not save him, and that it would, in fact, only make the few seconds left of his life worse than what they were, which were the few, precious, taunting seconds left of his life, so instead, he swallowed very hard a few times, or maybe only once—it all happened so quickly that a swallow couldn’t even have been counted, but he remembered the act of swallowing, perhaps the cliché “swallow your pride” even flitted through his mind, while behind him, people screamed out in agony and disbelief; he could hear babies, and children, and mothers, and fathers, and single and lonely men and women crying, calling out desperately for help, or answers, or safety, which is why he tried desperately to think about his body, listening intently to his saliva as it was descending through his throat, and after he thought about swallowing, he tried to think about his lungs inflating and deflating, he thought about his breath and his breathing and words and religious chants and vows, he thought about syllables and sounds and swallowing and words and forming understandable communicative sounds, and he thought about how those sounds were unanimously understood as words, which were thoughts, which were electrons shooting among neurons in the brain, connected to the spinal chord connected to muscles and nerves and skin and face and lips and tongue--h e certainly did not think of his children, or if he did, even for the briefest of moments, he pushed the thought of them out like a breath, and then he thought about breathing again, until the moment when he took the microphone from the control panel, thinking—quickly—wanting so dearly to say something, say anything, not to calm down or pacify all the people in the plane that would die with him within moments, but just to say something, because behind him, everyone was moaning, and cursing, and ripping the plane apart, searching for oxygen masks, or life preservers, or crucifixes, or everyone was passing out from the shock of it all, or perhaps couples were digging their nails into each others’ necks, shoving their hands in their pants, clawing at legs and thighs, or perhaps they were all holding their heads with both hands and screaming, “Our Father, who art in Heaven..” as they violently descended from the clouds into hell.

---
(k)

Idiot

Slurring is a blurring between the lips.

Moloch becomes mollusk
and skin,
sinking.
There were words I could once

fill a mouth with.
I don't want to tell you

about the things that I've been
buying, burying,

wrapped in paper, sealed in wax,

delicate as gum disease.

(My jaw pauses to pronounce a pain,

aphasia, asphyxia.)
Exhaustion
only prolongs the problem

of enunciation -
symbols, shells,

softening in saliva

to indecipherable.

I don't want it to seem

like I am mourning the warnings I forgot,

despite those pieces of skin I sucked on

dead weight, dead white,

Idioms rooting themselves in organs,

splitting muscle for a second.

They heal, close over themselves

as if fast forwarded.

It is then that I feel

the symptom of the sentence,

egg it on, dare it.

---
(k, circa 2005)

NowhereNothingNoone

Walking over the bones of broken horses, no definition, the clouds open their mouths, and open lungs breathe the husky air in, individually alone, letting the regret of past decisions sting, singe in our skins like a branding, these shadows have power, the trees double over as if punched or laughing, she's been murdered multiple times, she tells us, but who is she anyways, strangers look at me like they know my name, where I come from, I come from a land of thick-skinned oxen people, stubborn until submission, arrogant to a fault, the frozen mud crunches beneath our feet and he picks up a rock beneathe me, aim for the forehead, I begin to scream, see what happens when this particular skull splits, I imagine that serendipitous crepitus, and then the dog barks, snaps me back to this hard reality, he or I or we sniff the old dirt for new signs of life, not here, not now, not until she brings us all the way up to the top of the hill, freezing, that's when she told us about the horses, ruined by a vicious farmer, broken bodies buried beneath the land they were beaten on, beasts made to feel like beasts, so weak they believed those four legs weren't strong enough to break free from there, stained reins, chipped hooves, can you even imagine the scabs in the ears, how normal the wounds become, the more usual it seems to watch our blood fill the tubes running out of us, wake up long enough to scream this isn’t a dream, don't let them touch me again don't let them cut me open, they've got me, held fast to my intestines my god how much blood the body can let out once you allow it and my god did you forsake me, and I rub my eyes as if they were his, burdened by being helpless, thinking that the only real truth is, the only moral buried in all the rubble is you can't fight when you're being crucified, you can fight with two legs, two hands, a human form, last night I dreamt that you had to sacrifice your hands to stay alive, the only things that can hold us together, like branches

(k)