Step two :
Get small,
she said—small as possible
you ain’t gonna reach the earth
if you insist on being so big.
Curl your toes; just like that
til you sink neatly in on your center–
double, triple, crisp and clean-cut
like a paper brochure
tuck yourself under and let the head
droop.
Step one :
I throw up my hands
and jump out the bus window—
What you doing?!
I shriek
and laugh
as my face slams against the hot asphalt.
A car screeches beside
my left foot. Sticky exhaust
blossoms into my mouth
from the butt of the bus
and the squirrel
by the trash can
squeaks.
At the top of the outcrop
I sat with my knee-bones tight to my chest—
the river undulated
below, swirling
in shades of blues and yellows
refracted light on stones of marble
the guttural current cut the cliff
to slices–jagged & twisted and
Consider the man in the aloha shirt
talking to the Banyan tree.
The diet Pepsi clutched in his hands
holds him against the chipped picnic table
and the spotty pigeons scatter
when he flicks his toes.
She was a warm-weather writer
the sunlight singing into her salted shoulders
she tipped her head back and felt the flesh rise,
tiny hairs stretching for a soft sky.
The pen she held loosely between fingertips
knowing it wasn’t for show she was here.
If you scowl,
they’ll know. They’ll see
into that cave smile
and know—if you frown,
it’s clear to them, that
your mind is a burrito and you
are the tortilla, wrapped so endlessly
it’d take the sharpest knife to
separate that mound. If you let
a tear squeeze through
they’ll see and gasp and wonder
what must have happened
to you to make you like this.
If you tell him what you’re feeling—
abandonment, low self-esteem,
needs—well:
Don’t ask me to do
that. Don’t ask me
anything, actually,
I’m in deep, deep
fermentation
& have no flyers
to hand out today.
Praise be the autonomous
who sit, crumped upright
in a land of red Mountains.
The ones who eat, food dripping
from loose corners, at a table
of stone,
who lay, facedown on beds
of Earth shards, listening hard
for the rare sound
You wore their hearts on your wrists and ankles
belly to belly hugging,
chalky and holistic. They extended themselves to you
palms sunwards, asking you
to see them, to see them, to see
them.
Your own heart,
you tucked carefully out of peripherals,
finding happiness in the folds of
not having to share everything.
It’s all danger
here–
this you know, you feel
in the tapping at your temples
the throbbing
in your ankles. Danger
screamed in yellow exclamation
marks against your brow.
Yes.
They say it.
You say it–
All danger here.
How to make sense
in a world neglecting
crayons. I need paper
please that white blank paper
is vital
so much is vital
so much is vital
so much is missing.
If I cannot make sense
(and I cannot buy it)
then I must steal
sense. Take it with my chalk
hands, leave finger outlines
on the black velvet feel the curtains swirl
so like a dog’s ear.
Three cheers of a dusted dawn;
electric angels sweep the streets, and light
clouds skip stones against the still lavender
waters of the canal. Earth sings
her morning tune, low and orange
against the cool palm breeze.
Creation calms and tells
me I must start today
from the inside. No half
expressions.
