Poetry

All contrary noises in the world,
the bang of unlatched things, 
the scratching in the wall,

[…]

We are high performers not normal not just performers but high ones we 
perform things make papers smell like perfume we don’t order things other 

Ink slurs into byssal threads,
split blue caskets of mussels
scapular in ritual archipelago, butter, cream,

The problem is the voices

I can’t get out of my head. On the bridge, the captain’s playing
“Break On Through”; he’s been

Maybe the letter isn’t from a lover the letter is a layoff letter a lay aside letter
a lay into letter maybe the letter says you are an employee of me and I certainly

We passed the baby over the bed, and later we passed tissue,
and her Bible with its onion skin pages, its highlighted lessons
and dog-eared parables she kept handy with bookmarks 

All the beautiful young men,
Muscles etched with birds and names
That would be long-forgotten 

I’m telling you, was always like this: her fingers
around a cold glass, asking me if I really thought her lovely.
In a musky corner booth, thinking only of ourselves. We let one another be 

Nor its manifold mirages, billows and mountains
And mislaid islands shifting by the minute, which nonetheless

Do exist—as image, not as body

I intend to converse with many. None in the same room.
I have a daughter to search for, an acre of farmland to sell.
I must confirm that flour is falling and copper is rising;