The heel is frayed, She says, dismayed. The toes are wearing thin. She sits alone on her armchair throne And darns and darns again. The sock is empty And the foot Has long ago gone roaming. She squints in insufficient light, Not smiling, but frowning. The stitches neat, The needle true, The thread is never slack. If she can mend all of his socks, Perhaps he will come back. Oh no no no, he'll never come: She knows without a doubt. She sits alone on her tattered throne And rips miles of stitc...

turn that damn thing off, she said. my sister is coming for dinner. fuck your sister, I said. I'll cut her tits off with a knife. I'll rape her and rape her good. I drank warm beer and watched the riots: cops stupid from idleness pushing against the tide and on the ground amongst the fallen angry colored boys yellow flowers, tulips, I think. I won't say it again, she said. turn off the damn TV and come sit at the table. Bitch, I said. if no one else will kill me, I damn well will. I t...

freely furspitclaws                              springs leaving notmuch eaten discarded in tight pats of smell me unmistakable amidst sand that paws (so little they offend notatall) will not touch again no til                         ...

Full to the Brim —a black Abyss Whose Depths I cannot plumb Yet Midnight creeps up — like a Ghost And I — exhausted — am And so I take the Cup in hand Its Warmth — and sweet Perfume Bring Clarity to addled Thoughts That fly about the Room. Tip back the cup — and drink— The liquid hot and good Yet Bitterness — is all I taste Like a forgotten — Dream.  

I First Prometheus. Chained to the rock, his innards shiver each time the eagle comes and the sky is blue without a trace of lightning. II. How many of his children never feel his warm hands or know that in the darkness tinged with nightmare sweat that daddy's there? III. When he falls to earth at last he will be an animal: muscles rippling to carry Europa over oceans. The heroic sons destroyed, daughters forgotten by history, wives betrayed. He swats at them like flies. IV. In the end, the l...

He sends frantic letters daily, reeking of seaweed, undigested still. She does not answer. Wishes go ungranted. He assumes she's sitting on the couch at home, curlers in her geriatric hair (she dyes it weekly), eating bonbons with blue ribbon lips, letting her wand rust. The water is not good for him and anger cracks the wood. Around him, flesh is heaving him out and his own flesh is softening. He sniffs and smells no mold. He knows, at last, he's arrived. These are his faults. Breathless, he...

I'm in storage, considering cobwebs and breathing flakes of packing foam, dust of discarded clothes, rust, and the attic window too small to escape through taunts me: a slip of light, a retreating star. Somebody die already. I need the grief. Someone give birth or get married, I'll celebrate. Or burn the house down. Come on, you pyromaniacs, careless smokers, distracted cooks. I will choke on ash, singe myself running back to the world, face the bald ruins and pick up a pen.

His flesh so pink the nurses come running, flapping in their white dresses. I've never seen a naked man before, but somehow it's as natural as jump rope and he smiles as he runs down Main Street. The nurses catch up and he flails, glorious. My mother arrives to steer me inside the house, my face pressed against her hip, away from the iron fence that divides me from him, a fine line.

O, by what rogue delight the air loom is shaving me. This is not a parliamentary discussion. First it Xeroxes tortures and then it Fedexes them to my door. Slips them underneath. This is not paranoia, this is a plea. Turn off the electricity! I am volunteering! I will be the architect for so many asylums, I will sleep fleeced in the eiderdown, I will spit teeth and make disclosures, but O! Stop the postal service! Remove me from the mailing list! Do not remember me!

I. It is only the most innocent of girls who dreams at night of sperm with an open mouth. This bed is cold and the tower cold too and Daddy locked me up and threw away… You get the point. My skin tightens on my bones. The dreams are fevers of fertile pearls and flesh shaking and erupting. II. Amidst the white and black of my days there comes a shower of gold. It pours downwards from the ceiling, flooding my open thighs. And it could be a thousand gods or a leak in the plumbing for all I care....