Couvade
A box without hinges, key, or lid,
Yet golden treasure inside is hid.
man with a white chest big
as a barrel and slick as an oyster
with sweat in the morning by the toilet
he holds his distended belly in thick wristed
hands as it rumbles and sticks and swims
man goes to work where he sits
on a wall all day
it is hard work to brace his body
men in suits shake their horses’ heads
man proudly strokes the balanced bow
man eats mostly pitted
fruits, craves an inconvenience
as it is winter and apricots are
dry as old women’s wombs
man pushes knobbled fingers against
temples the tremble thrills
against him and his teeth snap
so hard they float
before day breaks he has not slept once
man goes to work where
he falls
it is the wrong hatching
and only cure
his eyes on different shards of
his belly shell he sees at two angles
all the king’s horses and men
gathering the pieces all
but the last part of him, his
man made yolk
glossed on the pavement
sun sopped and gently cooking
Dissociative Fugue
Dissociative Fugue
Exposition
Tonic (1)
The cobblestone house on the corner
where I lived, over a bakery,
where the baker swore at me in thick broguish bracken
and reached into me.
He kept me upstairs and fed me only icing cakes
and scones with flour fingerprints,
and strudels and profiteroles.
He left waxpaper flowers for me,
in baking pans, bloomed by oil.
I dreamed I had strong legs,
horse-legs, the way they could
wrap around a man and hold him there,
but they were dough, too.
He reached into me
except for the last time, when he pulled
me out. I swarmed into his
wallowing face,
spit the face out.
I found a way
to run away.
Entry of Countersubjects
(2)
The war was on with the snap of a
light switch.
Brandy and buckshot
was the old way, here there
was bullets burning into dirt.
My arms were gone,
a long gone way from here.
But I found a way
to run up into the hollow under my tongue.
Escapists keep keys
in cracked teeth, sore
callused cheek pockets,
caves in the gums and
hollows under tongues.
I worried the war
like a sweet that hadn’t melted away.
(3)
The summer junket of tornadoes,
the dust rush winging up.
I saw it from a long way off
but I hadn’t built the basement.
Parson and sac spiders,
and beetles and moths
scurried over warped planks and
my rusted hammer hands.
The tornado took a wallowing road,
like a river pulling the warship in,
torn sail clouds wrecking the air,
the twisting mast.
I put my family
into the broom cupboard.
(4)
We poured the cement,
and dusted it with stone
and stamped it with a heavy rod
to make it look more like stone.
I came back to watch
cement settle.
It is a stronger feeling than my apartment’s
beige couch whimpering like old dog’s fur.
I walked in the cement as though
it was seawater washed with gas station lights.
It bound me tight,
like when bathwater runs chilly,
when salts and oils
whimper down the backs of my thighs,
when I can’t wash my hands
when the sink is too small.
It was four days before
they found me.
Episode:
face and legs and arms and tongue and hands and feet
The sweet is a splinter.
It runs its way deeper into the rushing body.
The Middle Entries
(3)
It was not dust, it was a splintering
and leaf boned mass,
pressing and charging,
sailing.
I ran through ditchwater,
I coughed up splinters.
(4)
Pipe lines did not burst,
no swinging steel and iron
snapping from thronged cables
through the wilted air.
They quietly cut blocks
that crumbled when I ran.
(2)
The hospital was not white
it was a dirty and pale blue
and the putty color of tubing and flesh.
The needle in my hand snickered at me,
squeaked until
I found a way
to run away.
False Entry:
(3)
I ran down ditchwater in the rust colored air when I
(2)
I rode the river down the putty colored stairs when I
Stretto:
(4)
Crumbs of concrete litter
behind me but they
are not gaslight stars
on warshipping waves.
I was bound for louder walls
I was bound to pull my feet out
(2)
I pulled the tubing out.
The bag clunked behind me,
dripping all its water
tasted a little sour sweet,
like the war that’s tucked up
(3)
Inside the broom cupboard
(4)
I was bound by my feet by myself
Episode:
face and legs and arms and tongue and hands and feet
They reached inside
Final Entry of Tonic
(1)
My legs were dough
but I found a way to run on them.
Street lamps gone green when I ran
or crunched or waded
or crawled down cobblestones
or they had been cobblestones
when I had walked into that bakery for the first time
and I went upstairs
and from then it was only sugared daisies
and hordes of chocolates
shaped like little spiders and free things, only ever
dough and jelly and crumbs,
and the reaching in.
Stretto:
But I found a way
and no one knows who pulled out the sweet
little raisin eyes
that were bound in so tight.
Coda
face and legs and arms and tongue and hands and feet
They reach inside and pull
out the splinter,
a long gone way from here.
Exposition
Tonic (1)
The cobblestone house on the corner
where I lived, over a bakery,
where the baker swore at me in thick broguish bracken
and reached into me.
He kept me upstairs and fed me only icing cakes
and scones with flour fingerprints,
and strudels and profiteroles.
He left waxpaper flowers for me,
in baking pans, bloomed by oil.
I dreamed I had strong legs,
horse-legs, the way they could
wrap around a man and hold him there,
but they were dough, too.
He reached into me
except for the last time, when he pulled
me out. I swarmed into his
wallowing face,
spit the face out.
I found a way
to run away.
Entry of Countersubjects
(2)
The war was on with the snap of a
light switch.
Brandy and buckshot
was the old way, here there
was bullets burning into dirt.
My arms were gone,
a long gone way from here.
But I found a way
to run up into the hollow under my tongue.
Escapists keep keys
in cracked teeth, sore
callused cheek pockets,
caves in the gums and
hollows under tongues.
I worried the war
like a sweet that hadn’t melted away.
(3)
The summer junket of tornadoes,
the dust rush winging up.
I saw it from a long way off
but I hadn’t built the basement.
Parson and sac spiders,
and beetles and moths
scurried over warped planks and
my rusted hammer hands.
The tornado took a wallowing road,
like a river pulling the warship in,
torn sail clouds wrecking the air,
the twisting mast.
I put my family
into the broom cupboard.
(4)
We poured the cement,
and dusted it with stone
and stamped it with a heavy rod
to make it look more like stone.
I came back to watch
cement settle.
It is a stronger feeling than my apartment’s
beige couch whimpering like old dog’s fur.
I walked in the cement as though
it was seawater washed with gas station lights.
It bound me tight,
like when bathwater runs chilly,
when salts and oils
whimper down the backs of my thighs,
when I can’t wash my hands
when the sink is too small.
It was four days before
they found me.
Episode:
face and legs and arms and tongue and hands and feet
The sweet is a splinter.
It runs its way deeper into the rushing body.
The Middle Entries
(3)
It was not dust, it was a splintering
and leaf boned mass,
pressing and charging,
sailing.
I ran through ditchwater,
I coughed up splinters.
(4)
Pipe lines did not burst,
no swinging steel and iron
snapping from thronged cables
through the wilted air.
They quietly cut blocks
that crumbled when I ran.
(2)
The hospital was not white
it was a dirty and pale blue
and the putty color of tubing and flesh.
The needle in my hand snickered at me,
squeaked until
I found a way
to run away.
False Entry:
(3)
I ran down ditchwater in the rust colored air when I
(2)
I rode the river down the putty colored stairs when I
Stretto:
(4)
Crumbs of concrete litter
behind me but they
are not gaslight stars
on warshipping waves.
I was bound for louder walls
I was bound to pull my feet out
(2)
I pulled the tubing out.
The bag clunked behind me,
dripping all its water
tasted a little sour sweet,
like the war that’s tucked up
(3)
Inside the broom cupboard
(4)
I was bound by my feet by myself
Episode:
face and legs and arms and tongue and hands and feet
They reached inside
Final Entry of Tonic
(1)
My legs were dough
but I found a way to run on them.
Street lamps gone green when I ran
or crunched or waded
or crawled down cobblestones
or they had been cobblestones
when I had walked into that bakery for the first time
and I went upstairs
and from then it was only sugared daisies
and hordes of chocolates
shaped like little spiders and free things, only ever
dough and jelly and crumbs,
and the reaching in.
Stretto:
But I found a way
and no one knows who pulled out the sweet
little raisin eyes
that were bound in so tight.
Coda
face and legs and arms and tongue and hands and feet
They reach inside and pull
out the splinter,
a long gone way from here.
Jungle of Antlers and Thunder
Jungle of Antlers and Thunder
the meeting of both eyebrows at the bridge of the nose
this modern has
dog eyes, not the wolf's eyes
ridged in teeth but
wet wide domes
bristle lids, black ringed
sad little curves that
wait and
wailing, fear
a lightning storm on Christmas Eve
for its tripping ragtime
origins of brontosaurs
bromeliads' slapped faces,
piss hot rain,
blistering liverwort and fern,
cycads and gum palms,
kidney grass, leaf curls,
mildew freckles and wax myrtles.
this jungle is a body
its tail is a bullwhip
it can crack like a cannon
a ragged rhythm of hoofbeats
the reindeer trip time
on the roof, under the roof
this modern huddles
at the ground that
shrinks, the click
of toenails on tile.
he waits for a crunch of plaster
a crash of water,
a foot to enter
into the prickling woodsmoke.
the meeting of both eyebrows at the bridge of the nose
this modern has
dog eyes, not the wolf's eyes
ridged in teeth but
wet wide domes
bristle lids, black ringed
sad little curves that
wait and
wailing, fear
a lightning storm on Christmas Eve
for its tripping ragtime
origins of brontosaurs
bromeliads' slapped faces,
piss hot rain,
blistering liverwort and fern,
cycads and gum palms,
kidney grass, leaf curls,
mildew freckles and wax myrtles.
this jungle is a body
its tail is a bullwhip
it can crack like a cannon
a ragged rhythm of hoofbeats
the reindeer trip time
on the roof, under the roof
this modern huddles
at the ground that
shrinks, the click
of toenails on tile.
he waits for a crunch of plaster
a crash of water,
a foot to enter
into the prickling woodsmoke.
Hysterical Pregnancy
Hysterical Pregnancy
A beggar woman
went to the house of a poor woman. The poor
woman gave the beggar
woman a little barley corn. The beggar
woman asked the poor
woman what she wanted and the poor
woman answered
that she would most like a little child to care for all of her own.
In days she felt the soft corners of her
belly stretching
as if a cube was growing inside her
No doctors could tell her why she heard static in
the milky spine of the night but she knew
like a mother knows
The television was plugged into her by its cord
transmitting and receiving
the sensation of fetal movements known as quickening
Her nipples darkened to almost black
against her skin, her legs cricked and buckled
and her face shone like butter
Her center of gravity began shifting
like how the round earth moves as a pendulous child but she
inched and scooted through her day like a soft block
She squeezed and smoothed the
varicose veins emerging from the four front corners like
plants laying roots
In months she shuddered out
a small television set
playing a black and white movie of a beggar woman
who comes to a house and leaves eating barley corn
A beggar woman
went to the house of a poor woman. The poor
woman gave the beggar
woman a little barley corn. The beggar
woman asked the poor
woman what she wanted and the poor
woman answered
that she would most like a little child to care for all of her own.
In days she felt the soft corners of her
belly stretching
as if a cube was growing inside her
No doctors could tell her why she heard static in
the milky spine of the night but she knew
like a mother knows
The television was plugged into her by its cord
transmitting and receiving
the sensation of fetal movements known as quickening
Her nipples darkened to almost black
against her skin, her legs cricked and buckled
and her face shone like butter
Her center of gravity began shifting
like how the round earth moves as a pendulous child but she
inched and scooted through her day like a soft block
She squeezed and smoothed the
varicose veins emerging from the four front corners like
plants laying roots
In months she shuddered out
a small television set
playing a black and white movie of a beggar woman
who comes to a house and leaves eating barley corn
Objectum Sexuality
Objectum Sexuality
One
I am a woman and this is a bridge
despite our vast differences we are very much in love
Two
There is a woman in Sweden
She lives with nine cats and her lover
the Guillotine
has taken nine lives of her and transformed them
into cats to rasp against
her ankles and hand-embroidered slippers
Three
I love the roundness of his counterweights at the top.
I love him for the narrowness of his jibs.
I love him for the elegant lines of his gondola,
which is now covered up for the winter.
I like the ribbing up underneath his main display,
the parallel lines coming down,
I love that.
Four
A girl with a bow on a bed
the world-class archer masturbates
just like Robin Hood,
or Arthur with Excalibur,
when they fall out of love she will still compete
but she will slowly slip in ranks
Five
Is the Berlin Wall
male or female? The Eiffel tower chose her own gender.
When we became away from our language we lost
gendered nouns we began to
love objects
for practical purposes only
One
I am a woman and this is a bridge
despite our vast differences we are very much in love
Two
There is a woman in Sweden
She lives with nine cats and her lover
the Guillotine
has taken nine lives of her and transformed them
into cats to rasp against
her ankles and hand-embroidered slippers
Three
I love the roundness of his counterweights at the top.
I love him for the narrowness of his jibs.
I love him for the elegant lines of his gondola,
which is now covered up for the winter.
I like the ribbing up underneath his main display,
the parallel lines coming down,
I love that.
Four
A girl with a bow on a bed
the world-class archer masturbates
just like Robin Hood,
or Arthur with Excalibur,
when they fall out of love she will still compete
but she will slowly slip in ranks
Five
Is the Berlin Wall
male or female? The Eiffel tower chose her own gender.
When we became away from our language we lost
gendered nouns we began to
love objects
for practical purposes only
The Arms and Legs of a Birdcage
The Arms and Legs of a Birdcage
I sewed closed
the sleeves of his sweaters,
cooked oatmeal by the barrel.
He smelled like pine needles,
the sap of felled trees, the space
where his arms once were
was a needle browned swamp of
dry nude birds, bumped breasts lolling
over ribcages, wingless
in the spongy feathering grass.
With no legs
his buttocks curved like a knucklebone.
When we lay together,
my thighs fit in the slots under his ribs.
When I held the stumped end bone
I was his forearm, my thoughts
his fingers and wingtips.
I sewed closed
the sleeves of his sweaters,
cooked oatmeal by the barrel.
He smelled like pine needles,
the sap of felled trees, the space
where his arms once were
was a needle browned swamp of
dry nude birds, bumped breasts lolling
over ribcages, wingless
in the spongy feathering grass.
With no legs
his buttocks curved like a knucklebone.
When we lay together,
my thighs fit in the slots under his ribs.
When I held the stumped end bone
I was his forearm, my thoughts
his fingers and wingtips.
Retraction
Retraction
Triangle of orange tongued
turtle’s open mouth snapping
sinew twists on the scaled and pumping arms,
Thick neck’s strands like those raised on human necks
under the pressure,
The hackles and two flat little nostrils
and triangle eyes squeeze out
a timid sound:
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you
Won't you join the retreat?
The lobsters eagerly advance;
the mock turtle eagerly retreats.
The turtle is thick in his shell,
He tastes the whiting's tail in his own mouth, and the breadcrumbs
thrust onto the rich and green soup. Soup dribbles
from his sides of his sharp mouth.
There is another shore, you know, upon the other side,
the inside. So never mind
the thrush in your throat
or other disquiet swellings about
spending your sleepy nights on earth watching your penis retract,
hunched and pinching yourself.
There is another shore,
which pulls up snug under the blanket of your abdomen.
The turtle, snuck up inside like buds retreating
back under, the tendrils furling
petals curling and sinking,
He slinks inside his skin,
up under your
turtle shell flesh. The further off from
the nearer is to.
Triangle of orange tongued
turtle’s open mouth snapping
sinew twists on the scaled and pumping arms,
Thick neck’s strands like those raised on human necks
under the pressure,
The hackles and two flat little nostrils
and triangle eyes squeeze out
a timid sound:
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you
Won't you join the retreat?
The lobsters eagerly advance;
the mock turtle eagerly retreats.
The turtle is thick in his shell,
He tastes the whiting's tail in his own mouth, and the breadcrumbs
thrust onto the rich and green soup. Soup dribbles
from his sides of his sharp mouth.
There is another shore, you know, upon the other side,
the inside. So never mind
the thrush in your throat
or other disquiet swellings about
spending your sleepy nights on earth watching your penis retract,
hunched and pinching yourself.
There is another shore,
which pulls up snug under the blanket of your abdomen.
The turtle, snuck up inside like buds retreating
back under, the tendrils furling
petals curling and sinking,
He slinks inside his skin,
up under your
turtle shell flesh. The further off from
the nearer is to.
In the Foothills
In the Foothills
hemming in,
the foothills taste just like chokecherries
pressed into smaller spaces
foothill suburbs burst with sunbeams, stifled in
their own rib joints
low ridge over high school shows
red pocked grocery roof,
flickering swimming pools and heat
hazed tennis courts,
the mountain base
which I rushed until I couldn’t climb any more, up
cawing and lowing of cattle and crows up
beaten down dry grass hair up
the lowing of the mountain
born in canyon hips, now flowed up
tarantulas at my feet
we surged for our own messages
in twisted tilted oak branches
break bounding up
mountain summit showed
down in the wine cheese park festival
middle women all pintucked
middle men wine drunk, letting off regular odors
jazz so loud and hollering so muffled
I am back in the asphalt swimming
old gum and chlorine rising
who escaped
I rolled and slipped
mountain summit shows, I can see where I
tangled myself up like a bird in netting,
the grip of deer-addled foothills
spread on the summit and all thought was
mild hill creases are not enough
with fast fading and clinging
in foothills there is the taste of
aprons pressed with chokecherries
in the foothills my chest opens up
like window shutters to let air ruffle
my high skirt hem up
to my shoulders
which avalanched down from mountain holdings
and do not stretch above the foothills
hemming in,
the foothills taste just like chokecherries
pressed into smaller spaces
foothill suburbs burst with sunbeams, stifled in
their own rib joints
low ridge over high school shows
red pocked grocery roof,
flickering swimming pools and heat
hazed tennis courts,
the mountain base
which I rushed until I couldn’t climb any more, up
cawing and lowing of cattle and crows up
beaten down dry grass hair up
the lowing of the mountain
born in canyon hips, now flowed up
tarantulas at my feet
we surged for our own messages
in twisted tilted oak branches
break bounding up
mountain summit showed
down in the wine cheese park festival
middle women all pintucked
middle men wine drunk, letting off regular odors
jazz so loud and hollering so muffled
I am back in the asphalt swimming
old gum and chlorine rising
who escaped
I rolled and slipped
mountain summit shows, I can see where I
tangled myself up like a bird in netting,
the grip of deer-addled foothills
spread on the summit and all thought was
mild hill creases are not enough
with fast fading and clinging
in foothills there is the taste of
aprons pressed with chokecherries
in the foothills my chest opens up
like window shutters to let air ruffle
my high skirt hem up
to my shoulders
which avalanched down from mountain holdings
and do not stretch above the foothills
Embroidered Christmas Ornaments
My favorite holiday gifts to give, besides cookies, are those that follow tradition; I like getting satsuma tangerines in my stocking year after year, and I like crocheting everyone different sorts of cozy winter wearables.
I've decided that for Ryan's family, every year I'd like to start the tradition of contributing to their Christmas tree ornaments.
This year, I took wee embroidery hoops, and embroidered wreaths and each of their initials. I then wrapped the hoops in satin ribbon and BAM, ornaments!
I'm very excited about these; they came out so sweet! And surprisingly easy; it took about a day to make them all. I watched YouTube videos of a guy playing his way through Silent Hill 2, and he killed the final boss when I was tying the last ribbon.
If you try this, I suggest covering up the ugly embroidery knots in the back. For these, I cut out circles of that green felt and blanket-stitched it to the backs. Very tidy.
I hope Sandi, Adam, and Geoff like them!
On a House Boat, in New Orleans, in 1925
On a House Boat, in New Orleans, in 1925
Stonecrusher Mortlock rifles
through lady's undergarments when ladies
are sleeping, husbands on deck dancing
cigar mouths turning like ferry wheels
in the whisky echo of big jazz and
whisper colored lights
Stonecrusher Mortlock who drank mead from the blue
skull of Paul Bunyan's ox and stole the apple
bag from Appleseed and spit across
the Midwest, eating buffaloes and the tornado
that Pecos Bill rode
Stonecrusher Mortlock’s calluses
catch on lace and hooks, silk and corset bones and brocade
Stonecrusher Mortlock who was born of a man, from a long line of men
begetting men burst
from his father's womb, a crocodile already in the fist
Stonecrusher Mortlock in the bottom
of the boat turning
a corkscrew through the boat belly,
when the women
see the water and holler
that their old children have swung forth
Stonecrusher Mortlock rushes
his burled knuckles on their
shoulder skin,
he swims them ashore on his broad back, their
naked ankles
in the coal clear night, they’re
saying who is this
Stonecrusher Mortlock rifles
through lady's undergarments when ladies
are sleeping, husbands on deck dancing
cigar mouths turning like ferry wheels
in the whisky echo of big jazz and
whisper colored lights
Stonecrusher Mortlock who drank mead from the blue
skull of Paul Bunyan's ox and stole the apple
bag from Appleseed and spit across
the Midwest, eating buffaloes and the tornado
that Pecos Bill rode
Stonecrusher Mortlock’s calluses
catch on lace and hooks, silk and corset bones and brocade
Stonecrusher Mortlock who was born of a man, from a long line of men
begetting men burst
from his father's womb, a crocodile already in the fist
Stonecrusher Mortlock in the bottom
of the boat turning
a corkscrew through the boat belly,
when the women
see the water and holler
that their old children have swung forth
Stonecrusher Mortlock rushes
his burled knuckles on their
shoulder skin,
he swims them ashore on his broad back, their
naked ankles
in the coal clear night, they’re
saying who is this
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