Ultraviolet #1


I’m out back—on the lawn
where history is both too much for us 
and everything we could need—
ideal for vying with. 
The grass as my adversary
to be struck down by the vile
skin of my tissue, fuels
my descent amidst strata 
lest I take after the invention 
of the scientific method 
and fry on the pavement. 

There’s something else in my story 
that causes the writhing on the floor 
the lawn. Afternoons spent 
prostrate on a line of crops. 
The day rolls out its red carpet
to the edge of a cliff—the end 
of the walkway to the back door. 
In the cellar, hard cold concrete— 
a fruit turning bitter on a cistern
in an infinitely expanding 
corridor of shadow.

Ultraviolet #2


The environment’s variable medium
senses time on scales incompatible with mine. 
My intersection with space 
has given me this new body 
time and time again. 
It’s time, again, to not know 
what actions to take and to not know how 
to figure it out by myself. 

If there’s a voice in the beaded atmosphere
it won’t heed a call that won’t first stop to listen— 
from a room void 
of its furniture, a bare room 
the light wide across the new floor
the light alive across the smooth 
fresh floor. I’m only an intersection 
if I’m approaching an intersection 
of deep time mineral deposits 
and motherly instincts. 

The land can see no difference between 
my language and the watershed. 
The world is watered down 
by my saying so many things about it 
on condition of the words I’ve been given 
to use—the water that has yet to leave the cycle. 
This art is one of noting inaccuracy 
and taking advantage of it quietly, in secret. 
While without my knowledge 
expressions trickle down a hill
shallow beneath the surface, not deep enough 
to snag on bedrock. 

I’ve been told that a lake 
is gathering into a body somewhere between us 
and I’ve been told that somewhere between us
a lake is gathering into a body. 

Water ripples—
the reflection of the early light 
of Venus sets your eyes aflame.