ZOETROPE 

if I leave no legacy 
could my eyes play tricks 
on me endlessly

or until they collapse at the feet
of all my teenage epiphanies 

a zoetrope charading 
my whole fucking life 
in caramelized mauves

looping scenes 
of desiring 

the ease 
of mistaking 
a week 

for a pearl 

to be gifted 
never worn

unlike sheets 
pulled over 
my aroused face 

when I try not to stare 
at the colophon sky 

behind the actual sky 

in a disguise 
of a clock face 

or my actual aroused face 
that I’m tired of 

asking 
the questions of life to

as in my actual life
behind the one I’m living 

vicariously through
in the speeches I make

and I know it’s pathetic 

to have spent 2 lives up 
trying very hard 

not to stare 
at anything 

but a burnt-
smelling vérité 

to make
a great gift: 
a week 

in lieu of a face 

lit up 
by flash 

in which my pupils 
are 2 gemstones 
set flush 

an opal a freshwater pearl 

hold still

there is someone I share secret glances with
a small animal tries to look big 

POESY RING

that inarticulate candor of sight lines

in overture

the moonlight’s ceramic weight

is whalesong wetting a washcloth held over my face

in missionary I nurse its saline
dream of sterile union 

a sunbleached wishbone in jagged halves

no more knowledge

if there ever was

*

it’s the annual reappointment of vertigo

because tonight I bury the thought of a nave
that reeks of wild onion

a guillotine hanging from a striped awning

a getaway car 
with no brakes

some symbolic subtraction
from euphonic debris

a smudged lung

blank picture frame

*

there’s some truth I can’t make out from the crowd

because it isn’t a looseleaf doorway
among the evergreen crowd

versus 
face-down infinity

but the marrow 

of an oath 

gladness

an unnoticed tick 
buried in my pubis 

*

I never found 
what it is that I deserve

but when I got back home 
an orange mist hanging in every room 

was an emergency exit 

screaming like a blade of grass

in a still lawn that drops off like a pool

I wanted my spit to be useless
so I sealed the envelope 

a severed tongue 

is parlance 

*

a black dog weaves figure eights between my thighs

so I lay my sword at nighttime’s silken paws

some feverish star 
with violating hands

as unsettled as dust

coming back for more

do you really believe that 

I’ll believe in anything

a scarlet migraine

or great blue heron 
skinny as a rifle

smeared angel

the gurgle I mistook for distant traintracks 

was an aurora 
caught in my throat

*

a lace runner of light in the hallway

cleaning you off yourself with a warm rag 

goodnight

morning glory

empty barrel 

lacuna I caught in my teeth

the world wearing a wreath of every room where I shouldn’t be