realizing it also has a pocket, wondering what a ten month old would keep inside. gazing at the blueberry stain as I vacantly rub a wet Q tip over it, again.

We are this and this and this,  cinders flaming like lighthouses enveloped by fog,  someone tripping in the yard,  someone stumbling through the door. 

I think slowly, with the deliberation I need to follow through sounds, not drop silverware.When I open my mouth, the oh sound doesn't ah, remains round.

The clear blue of the ocean deep swam in. And then out. The salt dissolved the knots in my stomach.

ah,  here is the robin      (Just) here, the wren      (Just) the sharp tongue of the irises      (Just) the velvet bud      (Just) Light and Earth      (Just)

For finding yourself in collisions You did not choose. You could not avoid. The Flesh around the cleaved frame

Holy darvish, Shams-i-perende, Kāmil-i-Tabrīzī — I had not known then that I had been looking for you.

Shine a light through my gullet doc and you'll see intestine walls lined with fishes that I drew as a kid. Fishes, yeah. Plural. Tried to warn them about war, doc. Nobody listened.

if the wind caught open scars and distant checkbooks there was no indication it was broke

We made love in the kitchen, dinner cooked In the stove, and then burned in the stove. I don’t recall what the third mouth was doing As her first mouth kissed me and the second mouth Talked and inhaled and talked and exhaled.

One of three brothers, one of three sons, he tells me, one Sunday his oldest brother choked him unconscious onto the kitchen floor just to see what might happen.

Elsewhere. she plays dumb, prefers the old school dumpster meeting in silence. Or the local Pentecostal bad boy and his one-hour evening advice sessions. Or playing dutiful daughter, Or playing tad dumb.

A country of broken tiffin-boxes we are- If you come from my village for lunch at my city home let me know beforehand; we shall meet at Curry Road station, both you and I...

Both will be stuck with the tab at the end of the night. I’ve been the lawyer, so sure that I can argue down disdain; the doctor, trying to heal the broken at all costs. Nobody wants to drink alone, but everyone does.

My second sleep, where red, white and blue are burning, the ashes gleaning and glinting as they die. I wake to the carmine rays of dawn and fall asleep to the sound of fireworks outside. I cradle the ivory dove in its mourning, whispering, “Am I alive? Am I alive?”

My mother rationed it like electricity, food enemies had to be beaten, bombs avoided fires put out Love would be shown in a more practical way through duty, service.

The bleached armory of the sea Lay ever-washing on the shore In casques and blades and bulwarks. In your hand a gray medallion crumbles To powder And is claimed with haste By the wind

Spider plant is the wrong name for my immortal perennial. In all her newness, she remains the same tuberous roots that I touched with tiny fingers, eyes illiterate, but full of love.

They'll be tests, machines that spin famished tubes with eyes  like steam engines hanging in space, and no matter how deeply infrared you are, no matter how many mean dogs you put out front

the only observer of this war, a woman, she would recall, for years the haunting images of drinking blood from the enemies’ wounds a bestial attack on the body, long dead, of one of the defenders

a starless, smothering blanket of beastly odour. Pinned down, your mind sifts and sifts through the shock swiftly, recalling the ranger’s warning:               it always goes for your face, cover it with your hands, curve your body into a C, and be still;

on the backs of those who bow on the believer and the unbeliever on the protestant and the catholic on the anglican and the jew on the muslim and the hindu