birds in mid-flight over an ocean of enormous, believing in the place they will rest

climb down into my ribs. there is an aching. put on your boots for the dank and the wet. be sure to bring your tools. bring the adze, the auger. bring the hammer, the saw, and the level. bring wood. there is much work to be done. do not concern yourself with silence. when you are inside, you will hear the rustling. light a match in the darkness. you will see it, hulking there, quivering in the flickering chamber, wine-colored mass of pulp, whispering meat flailing in that humid cavern, murmuring in an alien tongue long ago lost to us. you must fix it. you must reach your hands into the machinery, and let it resonate through your bones. you must build the scaffolding high, venture into the inner reaches. ply your trade. i am trusting you. you must help me. you must.

Sex, Like Death, Like Apples

It always starts with a word...

A syllable or two,
Just a guttural hurricane stumble,
The larynx boiling over,
That primal vibration earthquaking the throat
With the molecules rubbing each other tectonic
Between two lips and an ear:
"Hi!
It's nice to meet you!"
Spoken like dry sand,
And then an avalanche of eyelashes,
A smile like land after seven months at sea,
A hand against the collar bone,
And a couple of hearts
Crashing around like caged beasts.

And just like that, we become cave people again,
Inheriting meaning for the first time,
Writing entire dictionaries with our bodies
And grunting with the weight of the momentous occasion
Of the discovery of a voice.

It always
Starts
With a word:
"Hi!
It is so nice to meet you"
And then in another moment
That is another now,
I am tasting the sweat of your inner thigh.
And it tastes good.

In exploring the topography of your body
I have become a mapmaker.
The canyons of your finger prints,
The ocean of blue beneath your wrist,
The hollows of your hips,
They are the moment that the beat drops,
They are a painting that can stop me in my tracks,
They are the ways we have taught each other to build light.

Because the sky is constantly roaring overhead,
and because we have all felt that silent, empty ache on our shoulders,
and because death is always in the room,
and because the terror and the beauty are one,
and because there is something holy in our touch,
for all these reasons we must touch.

We are rhythm, movement, and measure.
Call me clock, and you time,
And let me hands move inside of you.

They are selling fruit in the marketplace.
Pears that drip
Mangoes sweet to the tongue.
Your tongue is in my mouth.
Someone is rowing on the harbor
His muscles taut
The sweat between his shoulder blades.
You taste like the sea.
The white curtains billow from the open window.

Somewhere a tomato
Pierced by a knife
Gushes its juices
Onto a wooden cutting board.
Our clothes are grinning at us from the floor.
A garden is growing in slow motion.
Your breasts are rushing toward my tongue.
The scent of lavender is lifting through the window.
Your skin is growing goosebumps.
The ocean is swaying its hips.
A seahorse thinks
A beehive behaves
Your nakedness surprises me.

In the next room
A telephone is ringing.

I want you.

At a middle school dance
Two kids sway together
Without ever hearing the music
Playing around them.
Their stomachs touch like electrocution.

The air is swollen with heat.

A mockingbird shreds the night
With a song drenched so heavy in sweetness
That the heart swoons to hear it.

The room is melting around us.
Your back is arching.

In the slanted light of afternoon
Through the window of an empty kitchen
Two dust motes chase each other
Around and around
But they will never touch.

Your orgasm is the fall of Troy.

You gasp.
Your body jerks and spasms
With the dying throes of Achilles.
There are gunshots in the distance.
We both hold our breath as flames lick the walls.
A moan escapes you
Echoing the screams
Of the murdered innocent.
From the street
The wail of an infant.
Across town a paramedic
Presses his palms
To a man's chest wound
Trying to hold the life inside
From spilling out.

It is all in the touch.

All our muscles are tensed.
Priam is weeping
To watch his great city burn.
The sweat glistens on our skin.
We are welded together.
Through the wall
We can hear the laugh track
Of the neighbor's television.
Our eyes are locked like a bank vault.

I have not used this body until now.

Paris returns his arrows to their quiver
And you shiver in the exposed air
And for just a single
Moment
The silence
Is absolute.

And then
We breathe again.

teaching angels how to breathe like touching

Burn bright. She told me to burn bright. We all have to burn a little, she said, it's just a part of all this, but when it's your turn, make sure you burn bright. Let the pain of the flames that consume you also be the fuel that moves you. Flames have a tendency to engulf, but burning in light is better than drowning in darkness, so move your body like you are gasoline and everyone you encounter is a lit match, let your prayers be crackling embers exhaled up to kiss the stars. All this living is bound to hurt some, she said, so you might as well make the hurt worth something.

the copper in your bones is calling for blood

giggle, grin, and kick. when the rules are being re-written, there is always a period of mild anarchy. remain calm. stay indoors. do not, under any circumstances, riot or loot. don't drink the water. good. you're doing good. when it is over, there will be plenty to buy. you can resume working again, and the cycle will be complete. produce. consume. produce. consume. good. you're doing good. forgive me. my mind is running in circles again. there appears to be some barrier that it cannot get around. strange. oh well. i wonder if anything good is on television...i should not be writing in this state of mind, it seems i am far too filled with rage. good. you're doing good.

The Death of the News

When books go extinct, I will replace my eyes with computers and my ears with headphones. I will have my heart surgically removed and replace it with nothing. I will think about how much progress we have made.

the myth of light

your kisses fling disembodied birdsongs through me like i am a basement staircase that cinderblocks are crashing down, into a darkness that is heavy with rusted bicycles, old birdcages, and teenage memory. it is an engulfing darkness, shaped like the insides of your arms. if human-kind is a flurry of short-lived self importance, creating monuments to its own destruction, reaching to extinguish the light, then i will walk like a clam, straight into the darkness, holding your hand in mine like a rare treasure.

on the nights when the moon is like the sky's brain thinking too much

you wonder. you wonder what the hell happened. you wonder how the tumors and the ice bergs came out of nowhere. the sleet sticks to your face and it burns like goddamn. you sit on the front stoop, while all the illusions drain themselves from your head and go swirling into the night, and for a few brief moments you are empty and you can see the world for what it actually is.