Installation (2004-2005)

I once wore blame like bloody saran wrap,

adding layers until I choked

and stripped it from my tongue,

ears

shoulders

heart

back

intestines;

you were gone before I took you hostage

and patched it over your nose,

mouth

anus

urethra

eyes

and rented a bulldozer to bury you.

so I fashioned a voodoo doll

and the piled the shreds into a sacred mound in the den.

Ram-Sita-Ram

It was a means of control

arranging us boy-girl-boy-girl.

Schooled isolation.

Years later we would line up ourselves

in continuous boy-girl pairs

with desire to engulf, pacify, shut up.

We still squirm,

project paper wads,

snap bra straps, squeal,

pretend not to enjoy the diversion.

After all, we're cannibals primordially.

We seek flesh and souls to make us whole,

a husband to consume, a body to banish,

too frightened to know

that where there is Love there is no hunger.

A second away

Distance is measured in time, he said,

his soul leaning into her within one week,

ignoring standard logic.

Stop everything.

Well.

The rocky tube stabbed the mountainside about 100 yards from the chateau. The urban refugees dropped their bucket down, lower, to nothing, and came up empty. The Earth was at once God and Satan, or at least that's what Stefan thought.

He'd heard stories before, of obstinate frontiersman whose dreams of individualism transformed into the putrefied bodies of their children. Sitting at the dining table with is head in his hands, sighed horribly, then raised his eyes to Katerina's. He saw her for the first time clearly, who sat across from him in a ochre dress, silent, holding him up with her steadiness, her faith. She knew what to do. He turned to Clara, who was babbling into the mane of the wooden pony on wheels that he had crafted last Christmas. Katerina and Stefan hadn't eaten that day. Clara would be hungry by morning. He knew what to do.

The next morning, Katerina, who had no more milk, heated up the last of the water for Clara. She and Stefan each took a nourishing waft and a sip. There wasn't much to pack, and necessity required that they save fuel at any rate. They loaded up in silence and started through the fog-like dust. Rural smog.

Katerina did not see him as a failure, so he was not...

well

The rocky tube stabbed the mountainside about 100 yards from the chateau. The urban refugees dropped their bucket down, lower, to nothing, and came up empty. The Earth was at once God and Satan, or at least that's what Stefan thought...

brushing my teeth

today i start writing a few words every day the way I brush my teeth, the way I learned to meditate in the morning.

only i don't sit stupidly or search on npr.org for guidance on tooth brushing.

another stupid love prose poem

last week, for the first time, the years between us were a well- worn grave topped by a hearty garden. i was in love and taller but not with you. this week, you rise again, carrying implied promises into the New Year. i dig into your words. i should bury you again but i can't.