Naive
Dark blue clouds dot a pale blue sky in that false way
that signifies beauty. My brain topples over
like the red brick house in my hometown: there
was a fire and the whole family died—but I do not wish
to begin there. Where do authentic beginnings lie
save for in birth? I do not give birth. I have no daughters.
I only write this with claws like the claws of the bluest
bluebird—I saw him this morning—and he was clawing
at his face until his face became bloody like shins
in summertime. Last night, I dreamt that the blood
gave me more material. It was textured like a boat of gravy.
They say beginnings lie in names. I have listed the names
of the ones I love and am trying to photograph them all.
I wish to carve their eyes and noses into more experimental
territory. My loves! In this new city where you do not live,
I am staring at a bizarrely blue mountain range. I have been trying
to cross this road like the chicken in the popular joke,
but Subarus keep whizzing by. The sky is a table. I fold
my hands on top of its glassy surface and recall my mother
more accurately. She gave birth to me and now I have a body
I loathe in its grotesqueness—the way it loosens,
hangs. Memory in the present tense cannot exist,
which is why I am lonely: in the nightmare, I pretended
to read in front of the ones I love, but the book was upside down.
The word from now on is lonely, as old-fashioned
and boring as the word has become. The cost of the word is free.
Tonight, my loneliness blooms like a forest fire. Hush! Finally,
I call memory for what it is: shroud of the bluebird’s feathers.
