polkadodgeorganization:

I.

I was watching

as the wolves split open the scar

across your neck, and ripped out the stitches that held your sternum

together. The blood flooded over

your breasts and pooled in small lakes in the crestfallen

snow. I moved closer to the car,

smashed and

tangled amongst the fractured winter tree,

to light a cigarette in the effigy burning soft

dirges against the pale sun. You gurgled

a breath. Your lungs and heart beat against the exposed

ribcage as the beasts ripped away layers

of muscle and sought

marrow with their gnashing teeth.

I would move closer. I would

lift your head and pour smoke into your mouth

as though you were drowning.

I would note that,

after all,

there was no contrast between the crimson and the lily

white.

II.

We moved into your parents’ cottage on the

Pacific that April. You

would lay out in the yard as I mowed the

lawn and then I would join you with

a glass of lemonade.

The wind blew through the fir trees and, at your

whispered

command, I prepared the soil. I opened up

your forearm with the kitchen

knife. Split the veins and

butterflied the vascular

tissue. Stopped at your

shudder. The poppy seeds scattered into

you and slid between the radius and

the ulna, taking root. I sat there, watching, so they

grew up your

shoulder, blooming white across your breastbone

and into your chest cavity. Opened the

seam in your esophagus and brocaded your

neck with frills. Through the

summer I tended to

you; shearing away the raw flesh and

opening your abdomen to let the garden breathe. Every

morning I cut the flowers

away from your cheeks to look

into your eyes, to prepare a

bouquet for that evening’s meal.

III.

Escher was always my favorite you

whispered here, whispered a thousand times

before as we lay awake at 2 A.M.

Your back twisted and the spine snapped

as I pressed you flat up against

the museum wall,

pulled your arms up over your head

to keep you from fighting back.

I could feel the gathering footsteps

seeking your exposed navel, noting the outline

of your bra. I followed the

railway spikes through your palms,

there between the static art

while you cringed and gulped beneath me.

And you opened your mouth

hungrily, letting me

slide my tongue into you

into you

into

you.

The poems are listed on the page. They are listed under “Saint Joshua of the Long Thought”. We have arrived in Australia.