winesong II

whitenoise knuckles
faced in outwards and
around there are gaps
this lack, lacuna

or selfish blackholing

still, you have
milksour cheeks turned
pasty they drag on
bones and eyes glare
sunwards and driprot teeth
chewing skinsame patches

and ribsharp aches
so many linecrosses
so many ways to
bruise
so many ways to
hold
your head
armheavy
sleepdrink
dreamsoft/cry/fold

so many
rattling thoughts

Winesong

my body has been thickening itself
as a root against famine
neatly watered and split into compartments
this, thorax, here, abdomen.

all night I have been watching a spider
trace gently from wall to wall a thread.
I have been dusting.

Sweetness, I am no longer able
to take your hand and reassure you,
this wine is drowning my guts, this song
stuck in my head, I am rutted and unfortunate
as a tune whistled duskwards in some
lonesome field of wheat.

My love

Laying alone and thinking of
the lightness of you, goodly
rich weight in my arms.

The sweetness of you.
Salt on your skin, sugar-tongued,
my feast, my flighted bird, my love,

my lady love, my dear, my love,
my doe, sweetest, darling,
a menagarie and more, a voice,
a pair of arms holding me tight.

The goodly rich earth of you
to grow me, to ground me, to feed me.
That I might be a leaf to fall into you,
enrich you, make you more.
I want to see you shine.

To give and love, in this new year,
in this new light.

Saltsick IV

we have slept in these sheets.
I am approaching a time that will leave me
dry and boneached, stoneturned, moss
stripped back. Knotted hair.

I have not yet learnt the secret
sadnesses of ferns, of fossils. I am
trying, each day, a new way of crying,
a new place to stare at the sea, and I
think of this:

did I ever tell you how much water
I could swallow? Open-throated, pour
me full. I could drink and drink
and not reach the end of the ocean, and not
be satisfied with a gut full of salt

or the faint calls of lost creatures. This is all.

Saltwell

my own mania,
closeopening doors I choose,
stains on my bed, bloodhearts,
from me, from you, us, asking,
growing,

saltwashing and I remember
berries (small and white and chalky)
that were, are, mine
and I remember shells and
knives and rocks and seaweed,
remember swimming

and all of this quite literal
can't be taken away,
pennyadozen fantasy, must-smell
and old furniture,
flowers, 'don't touch the grill',
splinters and shells shells shells

taking me back
taking me back
Saltwell, Saltwell,
and I'm home.

drool

The air hangs low and still.
Know this:
I do not wear myself sleeve-hearted
for you;
this cartilage I crack
is not a war-cry
or a beat
for you to dance.

I bathe in my spit.

I am whole. 

this trick is easy:
there's nothing to it
and nothing from it.

even dawn found it
swimming through wallpaper
gluttonous for toes, for words
for a time

this trick is easiest
shut your mouth,
breathe through your nose,
repeat this prayer
through pinprick lips:

"not for me
the globular excess
waste away
waste away
waste away

not for me
milk drips on my chin
slow breath
slow breath
slow breath"