I Told You No One Was Going To Die
So then, when you die you rise
with actual space between the ground
& sky—roam, inhabit before your
heart is weighed against, ready
for measurement—silently—
I’m glad you are gone. The adobe will
never again rumble, shift
as plates of the earth in quake,
my palm upon the wall for balance.
But I disgraced you, even when you were
most wrong you shouldn’t have been, & my
methods of recording on paper
can’t replace you. I brace myself
against unmovable bounty—I found
your favorite orange ottoman
thrown in the heap & the wooden
two-tiered side table—I refused to help you
gather when you told me, You stop, you die.
Transfigure
& if I mix & take what I want
of this world & make the house
the home I once told you
I would—tell me I still can’t
be trusted—keep me from the end
I want before you leave this home last.
Hung the tapestry I wove for days,
break nights for nights on
end, purple tells me it couldn’t be
settled b/c it’s not how it
came, meditate it isn’t color
that gives you away to me, drink
coffee: I will not have you tell me to
wake up & remember you’re
gone, continue leave when day
can’t sustain you. I’ll give the doorbolts
to Ptah, the window to
the tomcat who—it wouldn’t
be this difficult if I didn’t
remember—will kill your chaos
serpent; still have fits of vomiting
when I don’t put the linen
against walls of your tomb, lean them
best I can w/messages
still trying you when you’re dead
as if now you’ll get them.
Mind Fuck
We keep telling ourselves we’ll
just use little bits, calcium carbonate lines
the curve of the cylinders’ insides,
water running non-stop,
not long enough
for contamination, but
symptom comes acute,
overdose of sense—you
call me too crazy to be loved
by anyone: those kept in cellars,
no light, pipes outside not under
dirt, the breaths deep & prolonged
belong to sleep—
so ask me again, more nicely
that you can’t live without
exposure. Muscular weakness
enervating my decision-
making & I’ll go this
round with you, dying by going
dull then arise suddenly into tremor,
convulsion. No symptom
then permanent damage;
we don’t want to
touch, anyway, unsure if
it’s of volition, or nothing like
volition, or abulia come before or after
I breathed same air as you, thought
we wouldn’t not breathe together.
Roasting Galena in Hot Air
A daily basis, thrown into intimacy
with lead, not coming up for air
or sun. If death comes premature
compared to usual lifespan, who is to
say, tell you it wasn’t long enough,
& you might have changed
your mind but it was in the moment
too late, already lowered, left under:
you decided staying was right or I decided
it for you. But, now, that you are down
stay committed to the process:
these platters have to come to
the surface flattened from your mined ore
into something useful, & I eat
with black specks lining the meats:
taste what you can’t even taste anymore
as delicious, or am I lost in the lore
of the gauche nature of loin, the veiny way
the slab was run, mesmerized by how
I can chew on arteries, rub my face against
this empty plate of the same element
you never held, oil left along my cheek
in long trails, the length.
Forging
There are people all around us that aren’t
us, can’t get used to, but I’m only
asked about you while you are
only asked about you, conflation of organs
when your back is against my chest
& stomach, are there arrows
long, sharp enough to make it
through two bodies at the same time—
or it will have to be one
then the other. I’m not asking you to bleed
as much as me, but to at least show
red on the broad leather straps
of your armor, softened by shower
ready for rush of maces, first
stone then metal-headed
melted for the temporal fossa. Lying
on my side, head cocked to the surface
of earth: body fallen into
inquisition when I really just lost
my capacities, power of receiving, & if I have
it this way you’ll have to be attached
to me—roll forward the parallel
planes of our skeletons, shift in
equivalent angles against
incarnadine ground, then will we have
to be travel partners forever,
judged by the same standards, & I keep
on better w/what’s behind
me, which is behind you, in front of me.
Smarted
Tell me what I’m dealing with
here, heavy bodies move w/
quickness I can’t combat—know
we’re both still awake, carry
ourselves every where we go:
forward compulsions of body
you call after-thought:
there’s so much dirt we’ve tracked
through our bare land unmarked, but
we can’t tell when was
where we would’ve been.
I forget preoccupation, figure if I will
like you better when dead,
natron-shrunken lips, & dried,
afloat w/me—dead preserver—
under you, your shadow lost
in my skin, tips of shoulder
blades darker than all your other
skin—I’m not asleep & will
tackle this dilemma
before you wake up even. Say
my first, middle, then
the last, don’t forget, entrance
me w/the letters of nothing
I’ve chosen—every syllable
adamant declaration of nothing—stop
to become what—I’ll still be alive.
In the Valley of Kings
I’ve put you into your tomb, tunnel cut
deep into earth, still sound resonant &
alveolate. There has to be an end.
I’m willing to disparage you dead,
risk consequences with all your valuables
alongside; I stole my portrait, face
framed in yellowish-buff, when I was
young, confused intensity
with love, you told me under skylight,
Your face has the symmetry of Osiris’ plan.
I know you thought about
cutting my cheek so not one
would agree. I don’t save these to address
myself daily, present arms; escort forgetting
& after I gouge out this hole
large enough for worming
into your cache, I’ll recline into
your favorite chair—
gold sheet embellished, inlaid
with colored stones & faience,
veneered with ivory; fall asleep—the sleep
of decades catching up. I will wake
with gems gripped under nail’s ledge,
cut corners off every piece of furniture,
increase surface area & leave
sun-heated sand to the rest, exfoliate
the leathers & woods into nothingness.