And my own body felt more alive than it ever had, as if the woman’s long-nailed finger had reached into my chest and kindled the flame in my heart. I could hear every sound around me again, painfully. I swallowed, tasting each particular smell. Human piss. Dirty wool. The sweat of a person about to die. Gummy and blue, like rainwater caught in a stone’s cleft. Bird droppings. Balsam perfume. Galbanum incense. The dense, moist center of yeasty bread.
LACUNA
A small comfort to know you already have lips, eyelashes, a bellybutton, a way of taking coffee; already have friends, ticket stubs, scars,
In numbers, there lies a beauty profound, In spirals, this beauty is perfectly wound. From sunflower fields to the galaxies’ twirl, The spiral is nature’s own charming whirl.
Grass high under apple trees,
The bark of the trees rough and sexual,
the grass growing heavy and uneven.
We cannot bear disaster, like
We cannot know his legendary head
wide eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
this house is my wound
shame blocks the sharing of it
no one can truly see it
i can’t even bear to take it’s true measure
