Three Poems

If Desire is Not a Theater But a Factory, I Have Made Some Marvelous Gifts for You

I ankle, I ankle,
I bone and I lung and I clavicle.
I heart and hear, neck and timpani.
The membrane expands, spleening wide
to care. Grandly, I coccyx my lunula, inhale.
I mandible and tonsil cartotid patella:
vomer, lacrimal, and still.
Look: I carpus and hip, dura mater
diploic. I palentine bone. Then trochlear tarsal
and still unworthy. I coxal the ulnar vulva
until my ossicles fallopian. Nightfall: the aorta descends,
the nerves are sympathetic. My fauces are trigeminal.
I would hypogastric popliteal, scapula the manubrium
for you. Already I have radiused the duodedum
glossopharyngeal. Fascia squamous. I glia my plurae menges
with metatarsals splayed. I thoracic mitral.
I tracheal, then lymph pineal. It’s good to be alive,
it’s good to be intact, though put together wretched.
My pretty gene’s asleep. See, I’m fine, dendrite in fact,
pleural until vaginal. Tip-toe the xyphoid, my pharynx
sphincters agape. This plantar is all mine, this occipital formation,
the frontal lobe aglow. See the light I’ve left on,
the sacral vein thrombosis, flesh of my world.

Hiroshima Mon Amour

four times at the museum. what museum?
a staircase. a staircase. a cacophony of neon.
four times at the museum. people from the waist down.
people in their shoes. reconstruction and lack.
plans and lack. explanations and lack. four times.
an aerial view. scorched metal in thought. twisted metal
in thought. vulnerable as a bouquet of flesh.
who would have thought flesh could suspend,
stones char, hair fall away without a body?
four times at the museum. in Peace Square
I remember nothing. I know it. nothing.
a body reading a paper. the simple grass.
you saw nothing. my hand on your scapula.
films and lack. weeping and lack. tourists and lack.
I’ve always wept. what is there to weep for?
acre upon acre and lack. new creatures in the ashes,
limping dogs, the newsreels play. the second day
(you saw nothing), the third day, a creation play,
the gladioli, the nothing, the deformed bodies
and the daylilies, the screaming, charred babies,
the illusion in love, a missing eyeball, just like in love,
a wedding band. the survivors, the just-born,
those waiting to return-the temporary survivors,
renting this space in time. fertile flesh twisted.
my hand on your scapula. I know everything.
you know nothing. monsters seep from wounds.
people from the waist down in panicked rain.
fishermen die. dead fish die. a city in anger-
who? anger and lack. a little castle of pearls.
a card for correspondence. you are not endowed
with memory. like you, I have struggled.
a reason to remember (the microphones
on the tourists’ bus). what is necessary
about memory? my hand on your scapula.
nine seconds. ten thousand suns. if again.
our cities. a map of our city. seven arms of the river.
the tide slowly rises in the seven arms of the river.
my hand on your scapula. I remember you. I meet
you. you’re destroying me. why not you
and lack. why not your skin. my hand on your scapula.

Black Dog

for my boss
Someday a black dog will find you.
Someday a black dog will find you and seize you by the neck.
Someday a black dog will take your vocal chords like twine in his jaws.
Someday a black dog will penetrate your throat, thinking nothing at all.
Someday a black dog will find you in a lonely place.
Someday a black dog will find you when you are covered in fire ants.
Someday a black dog will find you when you are already on fire.
Someday a black dog will find you.
Someday a black dog will find you when you are alone.
Someday a black dog will find you when you need to cry for help.
Someday a black dog will find you when it doesn’t matter.
Someday a black dog will convince you nothing matters.
Someday a black dog will not care that you’re named for an archangel.
Someday a black dog will not care.
Someday a black dog will make his mouth a pair of handcuffs.
Someday a black dog will stop only after emptying your bones.
Someday a black dog will pith you, slurp the marrow from your grieving bones.
Someday a black dog will find you when you are lost.
Someday a black dog will find its claws clenched around your clavicles.
Someday a black dog will leave you in a lightning storm.
Someday a black dog will be a cousin, a friend, an army of thieves and lovers.
Someday a black dog will know no word but your name.
Someday a black dog will press his haunches into your gall bladder.
Someday a black dog will made candy of your genitals.
Someday a black dog will haunt you on a day he’s hunted thousands.
Someday your bloody lack-of-face will blur into the rest.
Someday a black dog will devour your shaking hands.
Someday a black dog will make you shake.
Someday a black dog will fill his greedy maw with you.
Someday a black dog will sanction your dismemberment.
Someday a black dog will be oblivious to your putrid vomit.
Someday a black dog will make a doily of your ear.
Black dog, I am your benefactor and your sweetest kill.
You have made your vow upon my grave.
Soon, black dog, soon. Find the body I have given you.