Alignment
The small ceramic bowl
in my hand
is becoming hot
as the smoke from the herbs
blankets
the inside of my home.
Yerba Santa
is what’s in my hands.
Medicine
disguised
as something
so ordinary.
I’m chanting softly
beneath my breath
as the baby follows me
while I float
from room to room.
Top to bottom.
The ceramic bowl
in my hands
becoming hotter
as my intention
turns to fire.
No distortion.
Only alignment
You’d think sooner or later I’d learn
and not trust the kid working at Feed and Seed
who assures me anything in a hanging basket
will thrive on a sunny porch.
Year after year by late June
they’re brown and drooping
no matter how much I deadhead,
water and fertilize.
Distant memories of healty plants
on a shaded porch entice me
into thinking this year,
it will be different.
But alas, they shed, they sag, they die
a sad death before my eyes. Unable
to face the shame, I carry them
surreptitiously, one by one
before daylight,
hoping to avoid my gardener neighbor,
and deposit them into the waiting
open maw of the garbage can.
with twigs and all
tattered tafta ribbons
shiny satins knotted
hoping not to fall
leatherette threads
feathery fluff
a petal, a leaf and
unnameable stuff
splices of yarn
tufts of thread
a springy thing
from an old bed
A conglomerate
held with spirit and spit
ready for a fast ball
like a catchers mitt
abundance
abundance
redundant
occurrence
occuring
never
whenever
space
opens
hearts
open
hands
open
mouths
close
abundance
abundance
giving
nothing
back
forth
waters
bloom
fresh
flesh
costs
gold
silver
rubies
checkbooks
insurance
flesh
costs
lies
retractions
distractions
flesh
grows
shame
grows
pain
grows
debt
grows
weeds
grows
workdays
grows
clocks
grows
mold
grows
bile
grows
flowers
grows
bacteria
pestilence
returns
no
dividends
Crouched in hallways while the skies
Self-flagellate outside. Heads tucked
Between knees—the better to kiss
Your ass goodbye with, my dear—
Waiting for gargantuan cinder block
To collapse and break our backs,
For a tornado to barrel
Like the world’s largest tumbleweed—
Whiplash cloud, loblolly bark, cinder block,
Parking lot, flesh and tendon tumbleweed—
Down the dusky hall as though running
Late on standardized testing day,
Ready to shred the walls we duck against
Like Pangaea.
Every conversation seems a confessional
By default. The guy beside me spills his guts
About his recent bout of lice.
Very recent. “It’s not so bad,” he says,
“If you think of them as pets.”
Why not exhibits in a zoo? I wonder.
Nose hair lice, toe hair lice, eyebrow lice—
He had them all over; the largest of them
(The most “grizzled,” he said) had lice
Of their own, the few sprouts of hair
Twisting like defunct question marks
From their knobby heads. At this point I note
His hat is actually just a giant scab
Where louse nibbles congealed during
The healing process. Then his eyes bulge
And he doffs this hat, but seemingly without
Volition—he botches the doff, the hat lifts
From his hand and slips through the slippery air
And lands on my head instead.
I turn to the guy beside me, whose levitation
I attribute to his spirituality. A well-known Scientologist,
He carries not a backpack
But a briefcase everywhere; it occupies
Its own space on the floor beside
Him, even as the poorest kid in class
Crouches in the middle of the hall,
Unprotected by the cinder block walls—
He’ll have to content himself with
A death that doesn’t involve flattening.
“Like my hat?” I ask; but gusts, not words,
Budge his lips.
“Do Scientologists carry business cards?”
“Whoosh! Whirr! Crash! Bam!”
I worry that he’s just cast a Scientologist spell
On me, but ask one last question
Nonetheless. “Why haven’t you ever tried
Converting me? I’d make a damned fine Scientologist.
When I tried growing an ant farm
In a tennis ball container the whole tube
Molded over but I cleaned it out real
Nice afterward. Odd thing is that
There were no ant corpses inside.”
I find myself screaming that last part.
That’s when I notice the bull’s-eye
On his shirt, “tornado was here”
Screen-printed beside it, and the scab hat
Makes a beeline for it, and a congress
Of lice nosedive for it, and I realize
The guy to my right lied about the success
Of my treatment. The walls rip apart,
Every open mouth becomes a siren
At varying pitch. And so, dear reader,
Did I narrowly avoid head lice as a teenager.
When asked what he toted around
In his briefcase, the Scientologist answers,
“Crackers.”
this morning I tidied my space,
pulled out my table, set my tablet upon it.
when something pulled me
to look where I hadn’t.
old notifications, long put off.
somehow, I found last year.
I dared to stare into the abyss;
I scrolled back, exhuming
the collapse.
noting every snag as a potential
butterfly effect—softest wing beats
causing crashing tides, marking the moments,
blood-red between the lines.
I saw the foretelling
of the corpses
buried next to buckets
of false gold.
but it wasn’t worth the excavation.
artifacts came up tarnished
relics: rusted to nothing
but crumbling red-orange refuse
long lost to the salt of life
not a bay of buried treasure,
not even the bones remained;
only disappointing, long-dead,
rotted out wood.
I’m going on my third day with no words,
