Three Poems

Untitled

I was a fountain choreographer
in purple sheets, given to glass worship.
I was statues, too, broken down to chips,
when the rumor died down at the altar.
Elle ordered me (again) to Love My Hair,
when France and Russia fought over warships,
when we were two people meant to Ketchup;
but wasn’t that your job? (I mean, the hair).
Back when I spent my money on Moleskines -
they still write, to ask me if I want more.
I don’t know how to answer such questions,
so instead I tell them I want more skin,
because we stretched the rumor till it tore,
and then left it to yellow in the sun.


Marbles

The morning after the cow lost her calf,
the symptoms set in.

The planarian split into two,
3.4 miles from shore.

The slanted city/a spineless island,
sent the marbles on a downward roll.

Then with the drill (it’s a hands-on city):
don’t fix the shelves, please, just fill in the hole.

When I fell, I felled the topography.

You misunderstood me a hundred times,
yet here I am again, infralapsing.

So: there was your way and there was mine,
respecting our original parting.

Buried under a tree came back bolder:
that bell I found. Remember? I told you.


Windows

They are all talking about
the storm windows
but none of them saw
the note on the sink,
the one that kept it to storms,
on how to condition the storms
for storms.

And while they sign off in the copse,
through their talk of squalls
comes our daughter’s voice,
supplicating the raspberries,
those that dilly-dallied into September,
so old they taste like jam.

The woman who lived here
made her nest in a town
kept honest by wood.

Now an auctioneer codes
a shovel full of buttons
rested on a child’s sled
and a julep Rabbit,
68,000 miles tired.

It reminds me of a cabinet
where birds were laid to rest
in cotton balls.

No one is really from this town
and the only wood to ever come from here
was splintered, dipped in sulphur,
and inflamed against diminutive
adirondack chairs.

Our daughter pockets an acorn,
convincing us both she has taken
something valuable.