Poetry

Bay-facing scarps to the east 
bound beds of yellow-orange 
sand and sedge. And broken mollusk valves

With cries we woke the bear 
whose slumber was ancient, 
the bees whose frenzied paths 
were as methodical as a plowman’s. 
Between thickets we darted, 
our breath held like an amulet 
between our numbed hands.

I’m reading Zami in my girlfriend’s bed. It’s the first time I’ve read it in a long time, and will be her first time if she reads it like I told her to. She got it at the library after I found it and I said, 

I refused to throw out 
a single one— 
eggs, milk, Wonder Bread— 
the tiny blue checks 
like a secret code, 

I wouldn’t call it a masterpiece but its title was “I’m autistic and I love you” so I really couldn’t have asked for anything better I don’t think.

You think of fin de siècle decadence: perversity, 
death, decline, and decay—the rise of the monstrous

It doesn’t feel that hard but that could be a sign 
That these are so bad; I have no sense. Thinking about keeping these up all summer feels like 
Planning a wedding:

To win a free mattress, lovers must sleep 
hidden and apart behind a wall to discern 
each other by the cadence of their breath. 

this heart, its caverns of somewhere laughter, its waking craters, 
its forest of knives. Dilate its thin pulsing complicities

He loves those first hours after she comes back.