what i have in common with her blood

When thorns stuck to the stockings

my leg became something else-- a cartoon

cactus, friendly

with its polka dots and purple

like a cactus who says

I won't hurt you   that's when I opened

the bag, found the star-- corners torn, left

as a reminder to the star

(who no longer looked like a star

but a creature   nameless at the bottom of the sea)

I plucked out each thorn at the gate whose lock   unlatched hung

open as an earring and saw her then-- the woman

who was not me, who would not let another pass and I sighed

at the sight of her and a rising was then taking place   wet lipped and breath

the rising taking its warm place   and warmth

rose to the tips of risen things and doors parted : the woman who was not me

stayed there, fingering blood on her arm-- the blood

bright as though it wanted to stay inside her and live

the blood is from the gate, from the teeth she said   I asked whose teeth

and then I was pounding (she did not know which teeth)

I was pounding my fist into my palm

because of what had happened to the star

when the woman said it's okay   she grabbed my fist

and said   I can still tell it's a star

she is making a lovely nothing,

loses the stickers in the rain       she is  

her animal-self   the rain-coming--bone-swell just

before the Unsticking she is

a predictor though it aches    she stickers 

her knees and heads into it not-bird-like  

and close-eyed when it comes,   blind-like and so open 

is rain-and-she   of course she tilts her face   up    

her face is a satellite and the Pacific 

passes through her at any time

what is discernible

what is discernible

in this black that is whole    whole but for 

the light droplet with whom I have a starlike relationship   i breathe 

to its starlikeness and it breathes back and 

in our breathings we do not negate each other--   

starlikeness knows me as a contracting

form similar to a heart beat 

inside a birdcloud   it senses 

my footedness and we agree

it is a nearly unbroken

black and to be starlike and know 

       so much is improbable

The saddest thing

is a widower with sunblock

and a roof-top pool   unable

to reach that place 

where his wings would be

had his parents been crows  

but had his parents and he

all been crows and feathered

he wouldn't need the sunblock

fingers   the arms to reach there    

but if by some instinct he as a crow 

found himself beside the same 

pool with its smoky city views

and a roof-top widower 

was there   he as a crow would think 

nothing  of him   nothing but how 

the light burns off his glasses 

They who leave a penny on the bottom

do so not because they made a wish

the day the pool opened for chlorinated

business   but for some kind 

of foot fetish  or fetish with places people

hold their breaths temporarily

I'm sorry but that's a place

we all go alone regardless

of what shiny object or lack

left to gleam and be reached for    I don't know 

but some people are so twisted   so pissed in 

that any kind of psychological chlorine 

couldn't begin to cleanse their dead-bug 

slurping soul

To/For the Screaming Child

It would have to be blue but I (also)

want a ball not because it aches but because

my lips primarily biolumenesce blue

my most native tongue not-involves

the throat is silent and colored

even when hunched over the desk

my lips pretending to belong to

a very respected detective I wasn't

thinking about them even a little

but they were glowing blue

without me I realize I am always detecting

It is how I make it but it's so much

I say to the cows please turn off

my brain and I imagine a key hole

in my temple but never the key

but the cows aren't like me i am comfortable

when they don't blink hardly

ever and they do not know what

I taste like

Screaming child, I am sorry

in my train I forgot you and

the ball that you are screaming for

What can I say that sounds grownup and

wise don't stop screaming? never stop

desiring so loudly they press their

face into hot bricksides to hear

your safe commotion

and as for the round objects

to throw and catch-- do not believe them:

the air is changed despite what they

will say again I know you are probably

not interested anymore I know you want

that ball so badly and that is probably best

For Adrienne

The dog smelling sour in her hair: the only creature who presses against me
this hour I learned you no longer breathe. In my mother's house my mother's
words in response: cruel: echo.

I wanted a dog as a child. Instead l listened to Kurk Cobain and the bird bit
my finger from his cage: green if I had to name it. Years ahead I am naked
in a young tub when I learn of your death on Facebook: could you imagine

it would be like this. Your eyes are burning

with Jupiter now: I see you clearer than ever:
not your hands that shook but your voice that did not

the one time I met you in a dress you complimented and I felt like a disgrace. What does it matter

I did not scream at the forest this night I learned.
Lucille welcomes you, pray, Adrienne, around the fire I am sure
you both are dancing. The cat brushing against my back
in the same endless moment: the crickets wake

where I am,

my name does not appear in the atlas next
to yours rising in braille. I would dive into the ocean
if there were one because I am reading the bottom with my finger

tips. How connected in our separateness we are. If dogs howled

now my own howl could be lost inside the collective: safe there I am

more wild than this. And you. You are free.