Extinction Opus, No. 16
The future on stilts now. Corpus
callosum like a paperclip
unbent. Co-mingling. They say, “dirty”
they say, “rent.” You write letters
that no heaven could
decipher: Post habitat-ectomy,
the worms loft pixels
don’t shuck earth. The doctor
extant, but aloof. You scoop
the gripe, insert, gulp. It comes out
odd. Whack-a-mole
for the psychologically sad. The parts
console. “No seams,”
they say. “You are practically
seamless.” Post-clothes, you wear out
the notes. C flat, G minor. The skin
wilts—you rename the future by
what it predicts. A tree: canoe
in progress. Forsythia: yellow wands
to lodge a vase. In this way, nothing
gets past the parts.
Extinction Opus, No. 17
Darning the world—
a widening sock. Mahogany axed
solitary lash of trap where last
saw saola, latitudes
like bars or bark that serve
relapse. All trumpet, that lover
left notes: we are too alike, you
might be affected by my
moats and such. So thus,
goodbye. Cannot lay
blame. Need him a destroyer
not an empty dress. Live-snare,
electrical bolts. Habitat
sold, you spread
like sumac, mate with
one eye
open. Cast spells. Eye of newt
and forest vat. Bare
as veal in pens. Your past
catches, latches on.
The Woman Who Climbed The Beanstalk
Sick in June, I started having the dreams again,
of the giant, offering his office for me to hide
from some terrible crime I’d done
on his behalf. I funneled money
out of his mattress, into my mouth. “Hope drinks
through a straw,” he said in the dream, nodding.
In 1970, Soviets drilled a hole so deep
the core seeped out and turned to birds, slick
magenta flock. I was wingless at thirty. I said,
crush me, demolish me, do something. The roundup
won’t fit down my throat. Will I go sterile
from the tap water alone? Will the pesticides turn me on?
My hair is full of drug history and Vidal Sassoon.
My sinuses have violins sticking out.
Even when I woke, I wasn’t sure
what I was fleeing from. When the sun gives up,
we’ll still arabesque for eight minutes, unaware. The doctors ask,
“Still Vitamin C, still ibuprofen, probiotic,
nasal spray, antihistamine, zinc?” The giant
orders octopus, arugula, flatbread, coke. My inner throat
has a homunculus. I pickled a harmonica. I wanted
the music to outlive the dream.