All pieces were published in miniMAG
My beautiful Leah by PJ Harvey
Have you seen this woman?
Her name is Beautiful Leah
Her features: chronic
nightmares, pretzel face,
needy— not for me, in my
arms or in her illness. Did
she come around here, sir,
black hair & brown eye?
If she isn't found by
late September Beauty will
set a trail of drupes for me.
She was not in love give it back it's mine it's me
your middle name Marion prints more posters
I mix the glue— follow me to a bus station plant
a nutcracker boy under the seats like a gust.
Drupes include:
1. PISTACHIO
a place to crash at during lunch
2. ALMOND
each line was a staircase
3. NECTARINE
I hope she isn't doing coke
without me— crude affection
4. CHERRIES
shiny like a blister
5. COFFEE
pushable buttons— I'm barred from the
church her family runs
6. APRICOTS
I forgive all her apologies
7. DATES
Beauty is someone that never left me
8. COCONUT
She cinches her lips in place of lies,
a strategy, that of tailor chalk.
Joy of the moon
In Hellenistic astrology the moon's favorite house
is the third— perhaps for its short term
trips, like the ones my family took to see our aunties
throughout the years, the moon is joyful there,
I was, like a yard of circumstance abundant
with spinach— I inherited low iron
from my mother, as a child she had speech therapy,
she never spoke at school like me— it
could be our blood, she pumps red blooded
iron into the purple pits of her
elbows, my elbows green from excess
water. My school reports consisted of glowing
figures, quiet as mice, they looked like house
lights close-up & had a kept pace—
Uranus dances here in the sign
of Pisces, like a lemony signature from an angel
fish, strange ideas & sewn mouths don't
go well together, as a child I tugged its pants
as an indication to go home.
I got arrested for plagiarism of the dependencies &
subliminal messaging from other virginals. Jail
is fine as long as you keep quiet when appreciated,
the yard was sepia, here the child was sepia
stepped in brown snow— a new life
as starless as shatter-ice requires forgetfulness.
No pisces will survive the real world, all
your classmates were taken first.
No tragedy here, no one is allowed entrance,
that requires memories, that requires speech—
nostalgia got the best of our neighborhood, I'm the
only person here that lives, it ate flesh
off roofs, those scrambled spoils taste like mousetraps,
feral but appropriate for its appearance.
The wind by PJ Harvey
Code is metaphor for plays
in dirt with your fingers, suspect a cupid cat,
his tail articulates the bellow— you oh
you once encoded into DNA like engraving
wet pine. Tchüss, to birds
in dry trees— patron saints of moan sat
between winds, it weaves Satan's spawn, to
trap them like an art piece under
a dear oh dear poem. Cupid
cat thunk up an obstreperous chapel
screaming how water fell in love with dirt—
you, oh you must notice on the hills
those belugas in the wind, no?
TO EVE
Did Lillith send warnings or were you made aware?
I'd been made aware before you. That intelligence.
A motherboard fragmented to be ass thin & wide spread as
Great Hercules. Doppelgangers are
Religious especially when resembling the winds—
A motherboard posed in plain sight concerns you.
Motherboard posed in plain sight concerns me.
****
Heaven is below Pluto, chilliest den on record.
I'm not in any pain, in my mute image.
On the hills, I built my paper maché lagoon.
Inside it balances a chapel on my eyeball.
On the wall where I rest & wash my hair with.
Many many heavens are hidden.
Listen to the wind blow humming through.
Poor fakes are likely to bite your eye
& burn your irises to copper, humming
through, all you ask me for is good news.
— Dorow