Broom Broom. Brecken Hancock

plunge the bucket

      benthic deep.

      Leave down the glum machine

      (my arm-and-pail rocking-horse rig).

      Winter’s everywhere profusion.

      Huddle over its sink:

      head congested, festooned

      with weeds. Mother is nuts.

      The mind’s an organ

      of slush. Ahusha.

      His axe can’t cleave

      this confusion.

      SYMPTOMS INCLUDE DISINHIBITION

      In lusting after

      their son, Sandy remembers

      her husband, young.

      I’M ON A GIBBET, FONDLING MY FINE WORKMANSHIP

      In the brume

      of hangover

      I dog-paddle

      day. The oasis

      of convalescence

      appears solely

      via nostalgia.

      At the node

      when I rake

      back damp

      hair, erosion

      ratchets my gut.

      Who’s tut-tutting?

      The bile

      rinding my skin’s

      benign. In

      every pang

      a bullet of yin –

      wine’s its own

      antidote. Beyond

      its obvious notes,

      oak, fog, neap

      tide, daily bread –

      alone at night,

      I Sandy the bed.

      MOM’S SISTERS’ DAUGHTERS

      Navy blue in the hall.

      Five and five doors

      and blue navy rising,

      rising under the underslots.

      Five and five doors framing ten rooms,

      each with a woman in bed,

      each with a woman sleeping.

      Each with a yawning

      window, each with a lamp, doused.

      Across from each, a mirror.

      •

      The navy’s loud as wheezing. Ah aha.

      Mountains climb beyond the window.

      Ten and ten arms circling pillows,

      not other bodies in their beds.

      Ten and ten hands frigid with sweat.

      Oceans rime beyond the window.

      Women solo, tucked into themselves.

      Rooms drenched in exhales.

      The navy sounds, their breasts.

      On thermals, birds beyond windows.

      •

      A pug scrubs himself along carpet.

      Room to room he marks

      spurts of darkness

      under each underslot.

      Women’s cheeks pillow-creased,

      ten women ferning themselves.

      Mouths awe

      to navy tongues.

      •

      Navy blue thick in the hall

      as navy grackles, clotting. They hoist

      their wings, gaw and fuffle

      against each other, thick as piss

      flooding under underslots.

      The doors are slick with their cud and shit,

      their tide under underslots.

      •

      We women now bathing.

      Off the hall, five and five knobs

      to ten rooms, each with a woman in tub.

      Ten women nailing mosquito bites,

      scrubbing resin under ten and ten feet.

      We sink into upside-down longing,

      shave navy plumes off mounds.

      The baths grow cold. We rise.

      Our bodies rise to face mirrors.

      Five and five mirrors,

      twenty women facing ourselves.

      Five and five mirrors now,

      twenty women facing ourselves.

      And through the walls

      we face each other.

      And through the walls

      our backs to each other.

      Aha. And in the mirror

      twenty women. Me?