Preservative Woman

quietuntil she remembered you
then her eyes
looking off to the side
her voice would slip
out sideways
sliding to her tv
where glow-in-the-dark
plastic hands prayed to jesus
all night long
her wire wrapped stories
would spill pink-tongued
from her mouth
full of indentured servitude
her arms fluttering too fast
for her worn cotton house dress
imprinted with
an almost memory
of ripe cherries
and mildewed newspapers
while she worried worried
that she smelled
to high heaven
washing her hands again again
hot water running over
such secret stories
told between the petals
of her painted flowers

when i was five
she collected prints
children and
dogs and kitty cats
all with empty eyes
brimming with tears
and she wept
when my daddy said grace
at thanksgiving
her coat hanger shoulders
shaking shaking
shaking
rhinestones flashing
in the frames of her glasses
oh
the lime jello day
she died
nothing more
nothing less
why didn’t i tell youone day
i too
will feed
invisible cats
and fill notebooks
with the names
of people
i love

(Written for CombatWords on July 22, 2011)

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none of us there
are our ourselves
after all
that’s why you’re there
and if you are who you are
you never go home
you have to stay
on dayroom couches without color
next to marco who smells
of burnt tomato soup
who picks his nose
describes the subtle nuances
of each delicate new masterpiece
to emerge from his nasal passages
with the zeal of carter
opening king tut’s tomb
before wiping these snotty sarcophagi
on the arm of the couch
next to laqueesha
who towers over me
enfolds me in soft pillows
of ivory soap scented flesh
calling me
her scary little white girl
she laughs at my scars
and tells me i would be beautiful
in africawe march in place
chanting

this is not a place to get well
this is not a place to get welland i lie
because getting out of here
is all that
counts

after a while i was so over-medicated the empty spaces between the frame and cables and the outer skin of my body became filled with a thick sludge made of mucus sloshing around and at night they made the air gelatinous and turned on the magnets in the floor and i woke one morning having peed myself all itchy skin and sour embarrassment eating holes in my teeth as the nurse tells me over and over it’s alright it’s okay these things happen and i am full of rain just as it opens holes in the waves

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they’re
therein my thin coat of air
i ride a puddle
poke poke poking
a stick connects my belly
to oil-blossom water
near
all the pretty girls
i want to be
all shoulders
hair-tossed whispers
name bony boys
peering from pebbled places
for training bra straps
as they squeeze slimy tongues
from mucus mouths
but in the mud
i am a throwback
a cave girl
a flake of flint in my hand
i draw what i hunt
bison
elk
a mammoth i once helped skin
all the pretty people
i am not
listen
their words
screw me in a jar
with chloroform-soaked cotton
listen
their syllables
peel each layer of my skin
spit bubble thin
until i am left pinned to cork
each component of my body
called out with labels
neatly typed
my gears still whirring
grinding in starts
springs unwinding
fluids leaking on blotter paper
from
a rubber kick
so pretty
my hands shattering mud
oh
such girls
to have as friends
i
think

there
there
(Edited version of “osmotic pressure”, a poem written for CombatWords on February 25, 2011)

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:good morningi am careful to keep my voice studied neutral;
they believe machines talk like this
so i will play along
modulating my tones
to a paper gray with ones and zeroes
as if my toner
needs shaken

:what day is it?shaken seas and i will build a kayak
from straws and cling wrap
a vessel light as a bird
to fly upon the waves and carry me
dry as houses
safe as mouses
to a copper-plated shore
where a mainspring will be installed
by a man with eyebrows
like the sargasso sea

:could you tell me your name?i just need a spell of adventure
a rubber-tipped snout
to smell about
to breath melodies
the shape of sleep
the distance of inconsolable beaches
reaching
into the core of the sun
as we
as all of us
in here
stagger in the airless breeze

:she’s gone far away again my batteries are empty
i have been on this adventure
for days
compliments of the black cat
i am miss eveready
her black cat parts missing
i walk these tv halls
at a steady pace
the wiremesh windows
the look on his face

and here
i
am
having
fun(written for CombatWords on February 18, 2011)

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am a mole
living between walls
clinging to lathe strip
drywall mud
dragging my pink tail
through six miles of dusti suck hot suspicion
between paranoid halls
their voices vibrate
i poke my fringed nose out
fresh air upon my stained claws
deaf and blind and oh so dumb

mom has her knives out
she’s grinding them down
their edges stochastic infinities
and her eyes smell like rust
her breath full of religion
from a greased green bottleblood and fur gather in my belly
leaves my breath sour
because i taste doctors’ wires
her phone call between my teeth
there’s no question
she’s buying what they’re selling

they’ll come boots soon to leer
with clamps and tongues of beer
god have mercy upon this mole
pulled assfirst through a hole (written for CombatWords on February 11, 2011)

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