and knocked a drop of ink on the mattress,
where it bloomed
and darkened
and dried. I got quiet, watching it.
What, you said.
I shook my head.
I had stripped myself of every other longing,
of every possible
human comfort but in that moment, eating poison
from the jars,
how wealthy I was, how fragile, how strong, like the strange
skin of a bubble that can resist so much and then
nothing at all.
I watched my happiness sink through the unmade bed
where the blanket had been pushed aside,
one stain among many.
Open your mouth, you said,
and I did,
but it was too late, and the mattress was dry.
LABYRINTH
I drove looking for your house your car white I had never been inside
license plate memorized it’s not this driveway this
dead lawn No flags for you no cheap holiday decoration
lashing the bushes you had money. Lots of land somewhere my car
couldn’t take me. Miles of trees I cried after three hours circling
the same mailbox out of gas. Someone came by with a can
filled me up I could have fucked him/ didn’t. I saw
the pictures. Your back door. The dog
licking the screen the endless green of your kingdom your arms
spread wide and the only truly cruel thing you ever said
Darling, you will never find it.
MOTHER
It’s Christmas.
I know.
You have something to cook on there?
Mom.
What are you going to eat?
I’ll go out.
Where? There’s nothing there, I looked.
Looked where?
Google maps.
You’re crazy.
Me?
Well I just can’t make it, I’m sorry.
(quiet) Are you drawing?
Yes.
That’s something, at least.
At least.
I don’t mean it that way.
It’s good for me.
(pause) Is there—
I’ve got to go. This thing cuts out all the time.
And I’m running out—
—a man?
—of minutes. No.
What are the people like?
Like people.
Do you need money?
Yes but don’t send it.
What do you mean don’t send it?
I don’t want anything.
You sound strange.
It’s the phone.
The phone?
Because I hate talking on it and then I say things.
Are you sure—
It’s work. I’m working.
You can tell me—
Mom.
You’ll starve.
(silence)
Are there bears?
(sigh)
Because honey I know you
you’d let one eat you right up—
NIGHT SONG
You brought batteries for the radio.
We danced close, the way we couldn’t at the dance hall,
your cock against my thigh.
We danced those batteries out.
I took them, spent, when I left,
Bobby Hatfield’s sad falsetto
ringing through the copper caps.
Candles quivering against the glass, our shadows
hovering above our heads I will never forget
the spider’s egg opening in the corner, her babies
spilling across the wall as you dug your chin into my neck.
Walking through song after song.
The thing is, you were soft.
The white of a barely cooked egg, the glistening
edge of it, how it trembles on metal.
You kept falling in love.
The spiders
found the cracks, made new nests. They ate
the ants. And the radio sat on the shelf
above the little blackened pan with its scrawny omelets
and said nothing.
DAPHNE
Her back against me catching her
deep breaths. Naked she was smooth as pith
hair caught in a branch I pulled it free.
The women kneel at the root I watch.
How determined they are to bleed. Apollo’s gold eyes
didn’t dazzle me I
prefer the stream she opens her book and learns her trees
the flies are heavy this time of year she
combs them from her
bangs at night she’s thinking more and more
how to
escape it should she escape
where’s your daddy I asked
isn’t he a god
CELL
It worked
sometimes. Blue light in the dark
and your name in black
on the screen hardly ever
showing up. You didn’t need
to call: when you came
I was here.
Every time. Unerring this sense
of pussy and where
to find it.
Strung up in the smokehouse or waiting their turn beneath
the ice—
you know where the bodies are.
You