your hands are shaved, amputee
spiders wrestling with themselves,
their nail-spindles scratching and growing through the fray.

your hands cast their webs
into the crooks of my neck,
onto my ears, and crawl across my chest;
nesting, sleeping, stretching their legs as they fall still.

Cameo

Locked inside oysters,
(I search for sterling framing)
you long for pearl skin.

You scratched my back, shocked
you could trace the raised trail-scars.
Your tilled stripes remain;
I call them tattoos,
name them after you like stars,
plant memories there.

You Imagine The South

Your professor prepares the class to watch footage of Dr. Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream speech. Your professor reads quotations from Plessy v. Ferguson. You are taught about the dismantling of Jim Crow laws. You remember seeing footage of the National Guard with rifles at Alabama schools. You imagine Jim Crow as a man. You imagine the National Guard lining up as a firing squad. You imagine the execution of Jim Crow. You imagine his grieving family as Racism and vowing vengeance on The South. You imagine The South retching in the throngs of that curse. You imagine Jim Crow smiling as he bled out knowing the terrible strength of his family. You imagine his rusting blood. You imagine his bullet wounds. You think of the military and state-bought bullets. You think of your soldier father. You remember his story of shooting a man in the leg. You remember the warnings and promises he made to the man in the foreign country. You remember thinking of a tank then. You remember tanks and their steel skin and earthquake tracks. You remember thinking of American flags tattooed on the tanks' turret and knowing they belonged to your nation's terribly strong family. You remember laughing and nodding at your father's story. You remember goodnight hugs afterward. You remember Dr, Martin Luther King Jr. as an accused plagiarist and philanderer. You watch the footage of Dr. King's speech with your legs crossed. You wonder about his family's tattoos as the speech ends.

You Think of Warplots

Your professor asks your class to think of paralles between Cold War containment policies and current events. Your professor, thinking of arms, relates a story about finding a gun. You hear him describe finding a loaded .357 magnum in his shrubs. You think of warplots. You imagine the yard angry and building an armory. You imagine the yard growing unmowed and regretting the loss of subtle cultivation. You think of mowing yards. You remember yourself mowing lawns for your father's friends. You remember him teaching you how. You remember him telling you to grab the rumbling handle of the lawnmower and walk in a straight line. You remember his large hands clinched on either side of yours. You remember how minor your hands seemed. You remember how thin your arms were then. You remember your father walking behind you and steering. You remember thinking of your father explaining why crowds booed the Russian wrestlers. You think back to Truman's doctorine on Communism. You remember the Marshall Plan. You remember Truman's metaphor of evil seeds and evil soil and infestation. You think of mowing as patriotism. You think of your father as a patriot.

You Notice The Hook

You read over an Academic Paper Format. You read down the outline. You notice the five part Introduction. You notice The Hook is the first part. You read, "-attention getter (Why should the reader care?)" You imagine a fish hook binding pages together instead of a paperclip or staple. You imagine invisible magician's fishing line. You imagine the line unreeled from inside a reader's eye and knotted into the eyelet of the hook. You imagine everything with words with hooks. You imagine strings dangling from eyes, knotting themselves around the reading hooks automatically when you want to know what something says. You imagine this is how reading works. You imagine a grocery store. You imagine the magazine rack. You imagine a meager greeting card selection. You imagine old women crying over touching sympathy cards. You imagine their tears welling and flowing down their eye-strings toward the hook. You imagine the hook rusting after enough tears. You imagine everyone knows the best cards all have rusted hooks. You remember how blood rusts. You imagine finding a perfect sympathy card and wanting other people to read the card but not being able to cry. You imagine cutting your finger on the hook when you can not bring yourself to cry. You realize how blood and tears often appear as a package. You hope your blood-rust hook works. You hope your finger's hook-cut is enough to turn shoppers into readers. You hope not-crying does not make them stop caring. You return to the Academic Paper Format. You read the last section of the outline. You notice the seven part Discussion. You read the last part. You read, "Provide a brief conclusion."

You Imagine Helen Keller

You sit in a small classroom. You notice a grey-skyed downpour out of the lone window. You notice the florescent fixture above you. You notice the bulb, blinking and staggering. You guess it will die before class does. You flip through the stapled pages of a speech on your desk. You read Helen Keller wrote the speech. You hear the professor describe how she delivered the speech to teamsters. You furl your brow. You stare at the pages. You imagine Helen Keller gesturing from a balcony down to an adoring crowd. You imagine Helen Keller as Evita. You can not imagine her speaking. You imagine her mouth sullen and shut as she reads. You imagine her throat rumbling through the words. You imagine feeling her throat rumble with your open palm. You imagine the vibrations as harmonica notes which raise in pitch as her gestures grow furious. You imagine her eyes. You imagine her brow dancing from behind dark glasses to the melody of her guttural harmonica song. You imagine her wearing a purple velvet Victorian dress. You imagine a high neck and white lace. You imagine her wearing a matching hat. You imagine her hands in grey leather gloves. You imagine yourself wearing coveralls in her audience. You imagine standing packed against men buzzing with the hope of her gesture-song. You imagine they smell like your father. You imagine they smell like sweat and smoked cigarettes. You imagine holding a wrench in your fist. You imagine lifting your wrenched fist when Helen Keller thrusts her arms into the sky as her rumbling harmonica screeches. You imagine the men around you naming their daughters or cars Helen. You imagine farmers peppered in with the teamsters. You imagine your grandfather. You imagine Fred in the back of the crowd leaning on his Buick. You imagine her song disintegrating his reservations. You imagine him convinced. You imagine him nodding to himself as he drives away. You imagine he heard enough. You imagine this is why your mother is named Helen. You recognize you are still staring at the stapled papers. You notice the fixture above you buzz and flash. You notice the bulb burn out.

You Are No Druid

As you sit cross-legged under the pear blossoms, do not count the seasons their ancestors have bloomed there. The druids built stone calculators to count the seasons; the pear blossoms bloomed away from their craggy math for centuries after. Do not offend the pear blossoms so early in your sitting. First, close your eyes. Lift your arms into the sunlight after you have escaped your sleeves. Warm your blood. Turn your hands toward your face. Kiss each of your fingertips. Press your blessed fingers into your still-closed eyes until the black-pink-orange-yellow swirl-burn seeps slowly to the back of your brain. Bend your head to the ground and kiss the cool dirt in thanks. Settle your arms. Open your eyes. Allow the sight of the pear blossoms, sturdy and seeded, to recover your gaze. If the breeze does not scold you, does not mockingly whiz past your ears, the pear blossoms are pleased with your offering. You may now whisper of winter to their roots and understand bare branches. You may think of numbers; leave them unspoken but draw their shapes in the warming dirt. The pear blossoms will read your pictures and know that you are earnest, that you are no druid.

The moon, aloof and looming.
The sea, stalking and innate.
The whole damn mess,
undulating in stanzas,
engraved,
romantic.

Your Mother

Your mother lost her virginity thinking of a song; had, at some point, loved more men than you had lived years; let your father kiss her neck before the night you were conceived; dreamed of men, stoic yet empathetic, as she showered.

Your mother imagined celebrity and writing songs; rode down back roads before dawn daring the dew for adventure; cried, discarded, weekend nights she wasn't asked out.

The boy, burning deck-wood
falling char-steamed into the sea,
recites Casabianca but stammers over
"Love" in each line.
The poor ship cinders into midnight,
the poem left ill-read,
the boy, a failure, adorable, left drowning.

The boy, bubbling burnt-air
seizing toward the surface after the ship,
enunciates "Love" with mouthfuls of seawater,
Casabianca finished only after the fire's smothered.
The poor poem, like a schoolhouse
sunk under the weight of fiasco,
never moved the swimming sailors, the doomed captain.

The shore cocoons itself in sea,
prone & cold, a comforter to snuggle
while dreaming of marriages or
watching early-October horror films.

The sea wears the shore off the shoulder:
a slinky silk number bordering on oriental.
The sea prances in mirrors dawning the shore
decked in curlers and parody-red lipstick.

You Sit In On A Lecture

You sit in on a lecture. You hear about The Great Accommodator. You hear about Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Compromise. You learn the importance of loyalty to rich white businessmen. You think how the help then were just a law away from being the slaves. You hear about black housekeepers crying at the funerals of their white employers who had been their white owners. You imagine chapped mocca hands clasped in prayer under proud, melon breasts under heirloom shawls. You think of funerals. You realize your fear of death but not your own. You remember your first stepmother. You remember her funeral. You remember her smoothed, pinked skin. You remember not touching her. You remember not wanting to touch her. You remember thinking of molting snakes and their moon-blue eyes. You remember thinking the shed skin meant a more-comfortable snake. You remember growth. You remember thinking of the first girl you loved too young during the service. You remember how she was older than you. You regret losing touch. You remember scripting conversations about understanding monogamy and loss. You remember not understanding why she suddenly seemed vital. You remember hyperventilating outside in the shade afterward. You think back to loyalty. You remember Booker T. Washington. You remember The Great Accommodator. You stand and leave the lecture from the back of the hall.

I carried
you, shivering & sweating,
inside the house to my bed,
buried you under my comforter.

You planted
your bare hands
into the powder snow that morning,
stinging them, red & raw.

wicker rocking horse
scattering shadows across
fluffy beige carpet

rewritten love notes never referencing the editor, or revisions, or the author shambling through uneasy stomachs, or red ink, or slashing his way toward just what he means, or his not knowing what he means, or the crawling cowardice of not speaking to her but building folded-paper forts held together with colored ink, or the budding calluses where when his scrawling becomes feverish his fingers squeeze the pen, or the pushing of his knuckle toward the ink so his pen draws honestly, or the crying over too-honest editions he later crumbles and tares into strips before dropping them into the trash so no one can read them, or the eventual submitting because he was done with the relationship, or the rejecting of the narrative he could charm her back with notes, or that she could be charmed back, or that she would want to come back, or that he would want her back

Baggage

Unpacking the house,
mountains of still-taped boxes
suffocate closets
like old suitcases
forgotten at train stations,
displaced and hidden.

Replacing hidden
furniture inside the house,
I clean the station
grown stiff with boxes,
the musk of wet suitcases
seeps from the closets.

Shriving the closets,
disclosing what was hidden,
open suitcases
flood halls in the house
like trash tossed into boxes
while flushing stations.

Platform train stations
rattle like empty closets
after stark boxes
cease to be hidden,
scattered across the whole house
near lost suitcases.

Bemoaned suitcases
linger behind at stations;
repairing the house,
I restock closets.
Though no longer called hidden,
I restack boxes.

Marking the boxes—
porters name all suitcases:
worn tags fade, hidden
inside the stations’
lurking backrooms and closets—
I forsake the house.

Boxes in the house,
like suitcases in closets,
hidden in stations.