Expertise
His eyes trace my veins
to their bruised conclusions
but finds no answers. How?
How can they miss so many times?
​
They run deceptively deep
it's what I tell every nurse
whisper to ever needle
toe to toe with my waters.
​
I tell them this arm
but they don't believe me, falling
for the false bays on my left
that won't return blood
mile walk to true water
​
And this is how I think of myself
as water and beach and tide
trying to assert my expertise
over my own body
​
I tell them this one, here
near invisible, crook of my elbow
lazy river turn shadowed in creases
​
Okay.
Okay okay okay
Okay.
Okayokayokayokay.
​
Every try a flinch, the same anxious steps
avoiding the crush of bubble snails
And they are five tries across three nurses,
across a mile of tidelands and I know
the name of every vein they trample on.
And they are five long, digging tries
like going after nereids in the mud
tunnel veins with startled blood
wrestling away to the dark.
And they are recoiling, resetting,
sterile prepping while I'm tumbling
straight into the mud, frantic fingers
combing crumbling tunnels,
locked on to what they miss.
Saying here, saying WAIT!
but clumsy shovels overwhelm me
​
(it's not)
Okay.
Okay okay okay
Okay.
Okayokayokayokay.
​
It's done.
But it still hurts, bruising
like piled mud reminders
til the tide comes in
and all I can think of is going home
of bare feet in cold sand
​
​
​
The Highwaymen
Ships swallow the sea,
but stop before they are satisfied,
before ballast turns from balance,
massive metal mouths clam shut
before the sea swallows back.
But not before the highwaymen slip in.
They tumble in on artificial tides
armed with radulas, nematocysts,
spicules like knives; well-armed
stowaways of many orders ready
for the stick-up.
They wait, unseen.
Without moon or light,
time is a dull knife, it’s cuts ragged
like torn up ctenophores, consumed
by the highwaymen; those cousins
turned carnivorous samaras,
peeling oranges with no color in the dark.
Though colorless, the flesh is still plump
and sweet.
Oh, the highwaymen wait quietly;
They are shifting planets
without whispers, without suns,
waspish and inhospitable-
passed by pluteus larva searching for home,
spaceships longing for a place to land,
a place to grow shells
and spines.
The galaxies outside,
birthed in twists of light, collection of
cold bioluminescent bodies no bigger
than pin pricks, suspect nothing
but the highwaymen are coming.
In the moonlight,
foreign waters tumble out lacey
like wedding veils, masking the highwaymen
dropping them into new lives
on well-trodden paths
without predators and where the locals
are unsuspecting, plentiful
and sweet
sonnets to my cerebellum
i.
i lie in bed for hours, imagine fish-
soft bodies writhing weightless, water bound
but fluid, flowing water, boundless abyss
enriches, holds them gently, never drowns
imagine this is us! imagine hope
beside our open window breathing slow
imagine feeling rested when we’ve woke
imagine never stopping, going with the flow
​
instead, goldfish, once confined, overgrow, then jump the side-
get stuck, and pressure grows and grows until
the moon beneath my skin consumes the tide
for you are full, and i am never filled
​
and you are full, and i am emptied out
and you are full, and i, an empty mouth
​
ii.
i lie in bed for hours, imagine fish-
soft bodies writhing weightless, unlike us-
snake biting our own tail, skin and bone bound abyss
full but still filling, cycling, growing denser, tighter.
we could be fish if i were boundless-
instead you play the moon and consume the tide
beneath my skin. me, i lie outside the shower
begging for water, begging for kinder bones.
if i did this to you, you did it to me ten-fold;
if i narrowed the river, you damned it
if i pushed you down, you took me by the skull
and slammed us into the void like cement.
you become full, and i am emptied out
until you are parched and i am drowned.
No Sleep
Tonight, I am the tide made small
I am not like the rivers that feed the sea;
I envy that they have a god they can touch-
that will welcome them back,
fully, and become them.
How is it I should give everything-
that she should accept every cell,
a tributary, but not a temple?
Yet she will wade into the rivers.
She will crawl up the beach.
And lie with the earth
that left her.
I am the patron saint of false gods
A spiritualist without a deity
Ritualizer of the mundane superstitious
Of small changes and pink sunrises.
I am the altar-builder for the altars that false gods
Leave post it note religion at.
I am the candle-lighter for the candles false hope warms up at.
I am the prophet to false prophets, teacher to the inexpert experts, the certified uncertain professionals.
I am dried lavender knocked on freshly vacuumed carpet.
I am the last bit of your favorite soap in the shower you don’t use because you are afraid of dropping it or losing it or running out and so you smell like almonds instead of yourself.
I am the unpainted patches of the wall where nails lived. I am the memory of a home that felt lived in.
I am an altar-builder for false gods.
Immortals Need Endings
Will Atlas still strain
when we’ve moved on?
Will he look to the stars
pray to mortality, to needing-ness
beg, plead to the emptiness
that our roots will call us
to call this home again?
How long will he wait
before letting the sky
consume the ground?
The Ocean Has No Concept of Full
If I were a coastline I’d move south
lean into a lover where the river pours out
I’d wax and I’d wane like a slow moon
connected to the sea by a deep gouge
in its skull