the Dignity of Work (4/17)

Joints sparked nostalgic
by tragedies personal & professional,
My bones keep cracking
with the weight of the words
"the dignity of work".

Dignity,
as I experience it,
is a rectangular number,
in a rectangular box,
on a rectangular piece of paper
waiting in the rectangular mouth of an envelope.


When I hear those words about
work and dignity
I feel my joints like wet gunpowder
My bones detached with edges perforated.

Under this sort of dignity
life becomes a series of
If; then
statements.

Motion

Today I am basking in the idea of sunlight.
Like a theoretical cat
I am learning how to be many places at once
learning to harbor dissonace in the softer parts of my being.
I am jointed together flexibilities untold.

Within the human body there are four kinds of motion possible
bend;
twist;
the same concept polarized by compress and release;
the fourth motion doesn't even have a name
it requires floating bones
kneecaps,
rounded elbow petals,
and pebbles attached to the wrist.

A Few

List of signs that summer is dying:
Riding bikes on broken pavement
while the sky flames pink and tangerine
sky closes up shop early.
Conversations stall,
and nobody brings up the weather anymore.
Citizens use too many modifiers.
You can taste nostalgia even in those last hold outs:
 hot ham sandwiches,
 beer cold enough to rattle your teeth,
& kisses in the park, with cold water running over your feet.


Body and Bones
My body came to this spot
to free the world from sentience
to taste that back-of-the-mouth ink
that is not so easily held down
by the loud philosophy of wax paper
I am trying to talk about
shout about
all that it lost in the repeated reprints.

Holding what's lost begins my tongue buzzing
something hooked and honeyed pulls taught in the stomach
these butterflies have become long & loud
and now are cable cars tracing electric circles through my system
Sounds pop coppery from my mouth

 Reality hangs light & shifty like a kimono.
and between frantic diaphanous breaths
words start breaking down
fractures abbreviate into a periodic table for meaning.
She's so—

 Heavy

 You make my marrow aware for itself &
in a cascading moment of re-alignment
my bones begin seeing each other as neighboring countries.
Bones cry out throaty in deep rattling celebration
Bones celebrating their interdependence.
With cores condensing we are starting to shake off gravity's hand.
You make my bones feel power,
like superman could be their sidekick
or climb as high as we might ever wish

 There is gravity in your mouth and it want to crawl in and get unspun.

City Girls
The sweet smell in the air is complicated by something rusting
I smell the city making noises outside.
The skyscrapers shamelessly shout out their own names in the angled amber light
Tonight, I have traffic lights for eyes swirling red-yellow-green.
I am no longer made of mouthfuls of forest.
I am not made of trails in my backyard
and cardboard sliding down hillsides are only glimpses of my childhood.

We are city girls now
 and in my naive kind of way I sometimes want it all back
I want it to unfold like a lion yawning
like a spire of light bouncing out from mountainy teeth.
Instead, I will write you letter from the thicket of my childhood

Patience & Rhythmic Salt

I am waiting for the bricks to pull me in,
for the bass to ultimately shake the fantasies into action;
call forth an alternate universe:

An ocean of jitters
endlessly coming & going--
Making frothy footholds at the moon's expense.
Our minds have got jellyfish & driftwood for teeth;
Our poem coming up loose with mouthfuls of sand,
The thoughts crust over & dry out
like leftover starfish.

She drinks like a fish
who has a liver for every broken heartbeat.
Fish bones beguile the teeth
& finger the roof of your mouth like an insect

& I am waiting for the embrace of the jellyfish;
for the year of the sand-dollar
-a time when this series of crashes might buy you back.

I am waiting for the tide to wash up
empty of fish heads & needle bones,
Waiting for the salt to heal
for the jellyfish to untie their stings
(&move forward in the tempo of the lungs)

I am waiting for the moment I can reach up
and pry open tha short yawn of sunshine,
plant my hook in the yellow mouth of sky,
and drag her by the teeth into spring.