Tag Archives: spilled ink

Lizard Skin

Posted on by

J. packs another bowl and we pass it around a few times, getting a decent buzz going, and then we all go upstairs to see Rusko. Our group is divided between those who have seen Rusko before and those who have no idea what to expect. K. shows us to his room, and everyone gathers around the dresser. On top of the dresser is a huge glass terrarium and inside it- a motionless yellow-brown banded gecko.

K. lifts the creature out of the terrarium and presents it to us, beaming, and the girls smile indulgently and quietly slide their phones from their back pockets. “Here,” M. whispers to me, “let me take a picture of you with the lizard.”

“He’s a Velvet Gecko,” K. announces proudly, looking down at his cupped hands.

I don’t want to touch it, thinking for some reason of the resin on my hands. I’m afraid that I’ll hurt the thing- who knows what’s going to poison something this fragile? I bend my torso around Rusko instead, positioning my head directly behind, and at eye-level. From the viewpoint of M.’s camera, the effect of my round, red-cheeked face is Rusko transformed; he acquires the majesty of his prehistoric ancestors, solemn and unblinking against the backdrop of a rising sun.   

We pack more bowls, and take lots of pictures of Rusko chilling out on top of everyone’s heads.

Benched

Posted on by

We met the first time at an outdoor jazz festival
so why are we folding clothes
in this sad humming spaceship of a Laundromat
we were going to be better than that
we were going to
we were going to stop stealing detergent
or whatever we could get our hands on.

your lips and ears are famous
but you lost face with what’s between them
i didn’t mean them
i meant that we were going to

not end up like our teachers.

it turns out we were worse off.

our hands dipped in milk
to take the edge off
we are tracing circles of frost on glass
until the coach asks
who’s got fresh legs?

we look at our legs and then look at each other

and become a team.

2 Pigeons

Posted on by

We stood, hand in hand, two pigeons on a live wire

when time edged in, under the door like a folded rug.

The neighbourhood cats circling, tails twining below

they stopped at once, to lie on their backs and open

their jaws wide as whales. Our skin prickled with fright

under our feathers and we twisted our heads

all the way around and looked down at them-

their pink-ribbed mouths reminded us

of our bubblegum-thin lungs. Age came to us,

grayed us and curled around us on the wire before

 

the cats left us alone.  

Baby Appeal

Posted on by

A certain someone,  
Annie, wants a baby
Let’s make evil- he kicked at her
Lovin and touchin in yellow grass,
naked in the rain for
one hot minute.

When the fire happens- he lied
this is the place
(universally speaking)
C’mon girl, and drink from this
body of water
Behind the sun we’ll have our baby
slowly deeply and pain twisting in the
Blackwoods
Warm tape and
Why don’t you love me- because
You always sing the same.

True men don’t kill coyotes
by the way
You’re gonna get yours, Annie,
if you have to ask
(if you give it away).

A (partial) Found Poem. Source is the complete discography (song titles) of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Whiteflesh

Posted on by

I went to your lifeguard job.

Asking if you wanted to show
me your mussels – you know what
I mean – said yes as you
clamped a hand around your pipefish,

said yes to the whitecap wave
of your shoulders – I mean it –
pinched by the unwelcome mitten crab
then, going out with the tide
and coming in, and even then

to come upon fluorescent monsters, inkling
a newborn squid- that ancient tingling.   

The Inconsolata and Wounded

Posted on by

At the edge of stuck time, a tribe lived near
to where the whole world softens to a point-
the bayou ghosts are swirled through
with vacuum dust from the future
and trees bloat with the excreta
of parasite operations-

The Inconsolata
built unholy boats on the beach,
fathers fathers sons sons
cleaving skin from muscle among the old and diseased-
the hulls were quilts of human need

Unstitching time inside the caves,
sad shapes of women
blotched deep-purple, swollen thumbs  
stained with blood and blackberries
something starved-black
and gaping
out of the backs of their swathed and boiled heads

The Inconsolata
who have seen their boats dissolved-
brother-sisters and sister-brothers
called to the depths, in lulls or storms-
those on the shore
who have seen the black doves take wing from water
to manage the sinking, in coupling,
and byzantine aerial formations 

to manage the wounded, quietly suffering
left to soak in silver pools, miles below mountains
wishing to be lain beside rivers
where the moss
could sprout from their chins-
wishing for a green kind of help
from a tribe
interested only in skins.

Half-Life

Posted on by

You probably didn’t know this, but I used to hide
in the trunk of your car.

I saw myself as a gorgeous outlaw, putting on my makeup
and touching my red lips to the gun barrel. It was too dark
to see my reflection, but I knew how well my eyebrows
waved hello and how
my thumb would look inside your mouth. 

How you saw me was different- I know
like that girl who always wore the same t-shirt
day after day,
with a picture of a moose on it only instead of a moose it was
a picture of two people who are both halves of a horse, but keep
missing each other
day after day, oblivious
to the threat of extinction.

(and you never knew
and no one asked, ever)

While you were at work
I tucked my legs up into your perfect shoulder blades
while you looked for the right paperclip
which is the wrong color
and you will always be looking for it- I think
that if you wanted me to hold the pages
I would meet you halfway
I would stay in the trunk
and you could take me out
whenever you wanted to.

(I wouldn’t hide)

Fishing

Posted on by

if I was a bear
i would lumber and
i would make into my home
the cave behind this waterfall,
and wait for you
to flail over

i would punch your fish-face
with my head-sized paw
until your
gills caked with blood
until your
popcorn brain
eked out even one thought,
i would spin you on my claw
i would watch the water fall
and listen
for larger prey than you-

i would peel off every single scale
and underneath you would be blue.

What Remains, After Exhumation

Posted on by

We all remembered
how our great-aunt Helene’s
house was
noisily full
of retired ghosts, dragging
abacus chains, clicking
black eyelids
which seemed just like two halves
of
a bivalve shell.

my own room was cold
empty with
the silence of all the elephants
dull pink with mud flaps

run out of it.

seeing that
the mailbox bird outside
is a crow, of course leaping
right at the
man with a green horn
right at the
sitting duck eyes, gleaming
a gleeful stab! –
the way Helene wants it
the way

a spider
could live in your cheek
or you could wake up every
morning
with flecks of rust, staining
the pillow
and no idea if anyone in your
family is still alive.

Posted on by

We watch the
old black-and-white reruns
from the
backs of couches.

Lock this boy up,
he crashes his cars together-
trying to untape desks
Cut off the goalposts
And eat them tonight
Mom-in-the-kitchen stuff
Landing on her chin.

Wet shoes on the rubber mat-
Trying to read street signs
For what the earrings had cost
and for other articles
on subjects
on the milk-spilled floor.

A (partial) Found Poem, from Caroline B. Cooney’s “The Face on The Milk Carton”