shake shake shake

hand palm and leg calf

Without Interior: Ingress Painting



lie long grand odalisque
turban askew pillow indented
cyclop eye dead center
to face three-quarter view
edge of lip diminish
to a puncture
braided hair follows
contour of ear
circumference spine sweeps
twenty degrees southwest
in shade breast armpit stomach
fur silk flesh converge
to hollow blush
brown peacock feathers
in cave between
hand palm and leg calf
toes feel painted metal
silver cask sprouts dry yellow mist…



                                                         -John Hejduk

spit out the eyelashes

1. 
   

where did the green glass enter your ankle? how he only trembles slightly in the tent in kentucky,


over the underground system of caves. i know he measures trees. invasives are as steady as the crop rows.






we recite the english then spanish names of our few belongings. place them in sturdy but frank pine boxes. we address each other as you and you. we never cut one another.






sapping. the pages catch fire in the reverse order that they were written. he hangs up quickly when i say 'train.'






alone, you can barricade all of the doors. push your skin flesh against the burlap walls. rain, regardless. the thin body being held and led in the dance between the two men, that was mercy without commerce.






never do i drink enough. i rinse my eyes. i hang my head into the cavern of the sink. you probably have to shine your shoes by now: tarnished shoes walking along the landscape of the train. you cough audibly. i hear your cough through the walls of the tent.






in the reverse order they were written- we suck the rain water out of the vortex of the lettuce. never said this wasn't a hard place. fireflies or not. freedom or no. running until the bruises flat shine as lead.






there's no religion in the shape of an ax. complacent with the dishes. you slice onions and watch the clouds migrate east. it's someone else's wife. it's her wife. she looks like an arch angel. you spit out the eyelashes.