Stella Cadente

If you are missing something
it is because she took it

cradling it
between tongue and teeth

like the burning coal
that Moses carried
in his mouth.

_

Sublogic

The way in which we describe the propositions 
                      is not essential.

                                                - Ludwig Wittgenstein

I cannot say how far—

how many hallways traversed,

locked knobs rattled,

rooms checked,

loose panels pried free

to look behind, just in case—

only to find you, finally,

in someone else’s space,

where I discovered

that to hear you there

on the other side of the door

was enough.

Here’s a proposition for you:

        don’t give a fuck

about the way it is described.

So you be a philosopher

and I’ll be a poet—

no one will ever

wonder what happened to us

except ourselves.

_

Nebraska, circa '06

Our fingerprints mingle
on the lid of the sugar bowl

my hands smell like
dirt and death

the first robin of spring
lies in our bedroom closet
with a broken wing

look what the cat dragged in.

_

Bibliophile

I am still looking
for a good hard-backed copy
of love.

_

Trepidation

The uncanny is that class of the frightening which leads back

to what is known of old and long familiar.

                                                - Sigmund Freud

Known of old

and long familiar

   I feel

that certain class of fear

of the known

spun

un-

the frequent

that thrills with a shiver,

            a shake,

that takes

without touch

enough            to make

anything more corporeal

down-

right                 uncanny.

_

Wanderlust

. . . geography is also a type of writing,

as indicated by its suffix —graphy . . .

                            - Amy Wells-Lynn

O my

peripatetic lover,

if geography

is a type of writing

then travelers are authors,

explorers scribes—

and when you come wandering

my champaign fields,

meandering in hollows,

roving over eskers,

you re-

write me,

every time.

_

Flocking

A bird is a bending
of rules that I broke

feathers that can’t be
                                 unfallen
bones that can’t be
                              unhollowed

a swallow
a wren, and then—
a thrush

a thrill
and still

you can’t go back
into the egg
re-wet your wings

a bird is the old broken
world that I bent

a whorl: anything shaped like a coil
a curl, a girl, a whirl,
a whippoorwill
until

after words
the birds
come

on yellow feet to feed
on the cracked 
and crumbed.

_

Grammerotica

Puts his em—dash
in her (parentheses) and
comma, comma, comma,

leaves “quotation marks”
across his back

apostrophe’s possessiveness
precedes . . . ellipses

next morning just an
           indent
on the pilcrow beside her

_

Fore words

Speak to me

      sliding through your words

forwards      for words

talking     taking

too much of me

slipping under my

     words     afterwards

If there were notes beneath

they were piano-

pressed

             silently     in symphony

sin for me

     form

he     felt

for no one, none     for some

for sum of something suddenly in symphony sliding in in sin and slipping sound

_