Excerpts from Ricochet

Preface.

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In the beginning the past was notwithstanding. There was a thicket and I stood inside of it,
piercing a thimble.

          you knew she was
                     down there, didn’t you

I stayed my hide.

My voice through the stacks was a great danger; a far pilgrim so far
     from here. A beam repeating, I bore down and twisted

My beloved, the aerialist scanned with her needling
found her– with teeth   like~ and she was / and she was and will be him, breathless.

I wanted to grasp, but I’d blighted the corn on my way to gather what I needed: evidence to
suggest me: tooth-embossed belt, plastic chalice, bouquet minus baby’s breath, headache.

Mother disarmed my shawl through her wedding ring & its quality could not pass.

Of course I went on carrying out the sun                    Of course

I brought out kettles for forensics. I wore a southern accent, a prehensile tail. I could slow it down to ask fine questions.

          as if a geode          a geode issuing a pietà
           could divide forgiveness by lamentations

Hunger like what. Hunger like
What hunger like what?

XX. TO SPEAK THE BOTANY OF LIMBS

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i was born in a land of reckoning. when i came to the water i went for it, foaming in the
motherfucking waves, perfect – in the new world i wore syllables.

i wore my body along some light.
i, worrisome light
forced out of pigtails
shining down on this ditch like jesus. fungus on the water

i am not going to stay here with my hands calling down trees.
none of this red range happened to supply the water with ankles
a little more rouge in the mud

                    *

now that i have them i starve off my breasts and in the hospital, wear tweed pants under orange silk. pleasure takes a wall to shatter holes, her mare blind to the zipper. i would love all the lands with my hands on his hymen. scorpion ablaze

i speak the sureness of bread.          all warmth violent.          a cup of light erasing

  the wall     i answer to the floor.     i have the mouth     for taking it

          a trace fetters my hands          even with great fear

          to be astounding. i move     inside me. i let the cling fail

   then escape       my eye, crease in a folded face

     through the wound.          passing water.

                    *

eyelet penumbral, carry me to a history; the bull by her golden braid.
my harness & my opera glass. to look at me, god sent silence. my light shone to ash.

did you call me girl?
      i am not who you think
but i am.

XVIII. RICOCHET

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this is my appleseed // i am going down
in throat glow.. suck
to the bone, hilt of the deep-sea,
thumb striking off ember, her cock

disguised by darkness she throws
at herself, lips on the trigger. her nipple
could burst and scorch
a place for passing.
s/he opens

her mouth & clamps
down. the shoreline
a fist reflexively closing
in amidah & trees.

if there could have been
one, i would have carried the way
around it. would’ve blown
datura past the threshold.

my love, this
this is for flame.

on the roof
in a storm
where the steam starts.