Migration

 An entire species of beast forms one dark cloud

Storming on piquant hooves across the prairie (fallow) plain

Heaving against/breathing earthen breast;

Echoes of the monarch’s—

A wisdom in the wings

Sings meconium into venation structure

Fluctuating with a sensitivity

To conditions.

Nothing more than

An interest:

(she heard

(inner rest)

…at the frequency which these

(alas) open rhythmic-

the same blink and gentle gesture,

inviting validation

:down to those whose song of brine and breach swims northward

:flirting with birds above airily carried across the mesquite arenas

by drunken flap and mishap,

and only after

climbing clouds, stumbling over secret currents,

the light—

:on grey mock muddle,

huddle between the pages of

blue eucalyptus notes

to lay a cheek against a stem—

(nod or bow)

gratitude,

:in keeping,

with

those who dare to cool

a flushed face

against the spine of a lover.

…

Fin rise,

Ache from the tightened chest,

And migrate when the sunlit curiosity

Of compassion cannot keep quiet.

spare elipses

She has told me before

The pebbles on the shore

Are simply spare ellipses;

She learned

to read

And I realize

she has known

The knots in the planks are punctuation

For the stretched

type, face,

Of pattern in the grained boards

Beneath rough-hewn hands and calloused hopes

She has always

The understanding

That yellow tanager

Sings the report

reading the blossoms

and cotyledons

as vowels and consonants,

respectfully,

on the orchard page;

--I would have guessed

had I imagined--

She learned punctuation from the freckles

That formed

under my kisses

where her skin cautiously absorbed my sunlit hopes

That became melanized while she slept in

Wept moonlight

she sings the words

from beyond the pages of

love songs and lullabies

To herself knowing

Full/well

They are the same thing.

First Language

-->

I know why

The words won’t fall out

Of your mouth

As easily as the air

In the first days you cannot yet

…predict (how I will tame each)

…drop, oil, tear(,)

…welcome the scent of morning

…sigh

Grotesque is a learned experience and absurdity is an acquired taste

//Bawdy and body are not the same when you see them captured in lines and circles

Against the white sheet//

I know enough about the funk shun

Of word and lengua to trust;

Silence is my first language.

There are so many ways to tell me

you don’t know

until you come close

go blind;

put your hand on the braille

of desire and tell me

what your fingertips find.

open heart

We often forget

that we must break open

or cut through

the rib cage if we wish to

access the heart muscle

Can the brawn and bone of one body

take the frame of another

in hand and rent/

render splinter the line dividing good and evil?

The tools are the usual

(:will and emotion),

that snap into human frame

and unwind white sinew

as if it were made of twig and strung by twine.

In grief our movements take on

the punctuation

Of partial cadavers:

Studied by those who knew only the silent science

Of dissecting widths

apart from sight and feeling.

Broken Bodies Part

It was the night

he bit into his fist, again,

not knowing it.

Gravity turns such things to stone:

Rather than blood on the knuckle

A fissure formed—(a line

drawn perpendicular

to others more familiar, almost,

welcomed

by the slow softening

mineral part)

where harsher sounds are

formed by touch and tongue.

Now we understand the relationship/between

(Tiny-cavernous)

pores connected by jagged cracks—

like a crumbling constellation—

explaining

why we call them

heavenly bodies: At dawn he opens his mouth

to finally exhale the story

and stars

fall

:

;

,

tumbling

out/in

broken pieces.