I want to be in a cold car    

with all my selves

coat on  

driving    

in a Massachusetts I never left    

or lived.        

The divine sweetness of the girls    

in my head    

the car exhaling

dirty white

over dirty white roads.

The mountains    

press the sky    

press the clouds.

Far away geese are calling   

I park at the party.

Cloud of golden midges    

I’m in love

everything is on fire    

it is four o’clock

on a Friday forever    

it is almost spring

and I have never been hurt.        

Sturdy yellow petals    

over the turnstile    

pleasure of excess    

of heat    

in the butterfly garden

I am already concerned    

everything is past.

Nothing happens

fast enough

I will lick these peonies open myself.

Walking over the bridge of names

the darkest dark

I have ever seen

dark water

dark cars hushing

over the dark street.

Watching the party blink on

sealing everything with fear.

Warm scent of curled hair

on warm dense fur collar

dress red as a cat’s throat.

Cutty Sark.

When we go inside the party

who will we be.  

Loose tobacco

quartz    

faded brown rose   

incense and silk scarves

at the cigarette shop.    

Spiraling piles of books

under the windowsills

at Troubadour,

names gossiping in the flyleaves

spiders on the porch.

Here is the swimming hole

where we prise garnets from the rocks

little tick sucking at my chest

here is where the black bear waited

by the door

here is where we pulled over

to talk

in the unholy church

here is the shop

where we buy eggs and bread

here it is.

Making faces in the convex mirror

I’m told this is the face

that makes me pretty

and this is the face

that makes me me.

Wet leaf

on the wet skylight.

I am the ghost

at the feast

I am afraid

of the telephone

thunder

the dead

the space between now and then.

The dark is alive

with the imagined scents

of sleep and hair

I pull it on like a blanket

the night’s most awful blanket

I’m breathing dreadful clouds

like dreams

wet can of wet ash

burnt cigarette ends

ice on the sill

on my elbows.

Everyone who lived here

before me

is dead.

Is that a nice thing

to tell me

before I go to bed?

Then merciful sleeping

into the charred morning.

Honey light

and the frozen millstream.

Kitten-faced violas in a mug

whole afternoons on the grass

screen door slamming and slamming

fresh red blood

on my palm.

I am thinking of something

tell me what I am thinking.

I shouldn’t

but I am.

I don’t remember anything    

rainy afternoon on Locust

following smells home    

detergent    

jasmine    

dough    

shit

the cold expensive smell

of the coats on the bed

is it wrong    

to care about this    

no.   

Amanita

hen-of-the-woods

little red one with white dots

every slender thing

that grows on the forest floor

has a name.

Brackish water has a taste

like fear.

Fear tastes like aspirin

inside the old cupboard

in the shed

overturned boat

stored in the eaves

doves

dove shit

it is not ok to be here.

Ferns grow

out of bricks.

The apples are going

with sweet dead faces.

Wet dusty scent of storm windows

ozone

Non-shadow of blinds making vertebrae

watery light on the wall   

the sound of mail being sent (slide whistle of joy)

the dumb daily things    

the luxury of abstinence from lipstick    

o world

o world when

did you get so small.

Yes

all these sounds

low and holy in my ear like night.