we found these artifacts,
spiral closures wrapped in skin
skin of the last one that came down laughing.
and the headlights of dandelions breed a delicate madness-- as we walk
the black ribbons of the pier and stand above the ocean
pearls,
i smell seagulls. taste salt.
i left her in minneapolis, small apartment windows covered
black fabric to block out the light. i lived here, sick and sweating.
taking baths at four am to quell the shakes--
My legs have a life of their own.
she took pictures of herself naked. shaved head.
plastic dildo in hand.
and i watched her.
i watched her watching me.
eight years and then she came down laughing---
laughing,
eight years and she came down
laughing.
when she found the edge---
her proclivity for
steady pain sent her
spiraling---
( did i? )
so we spiraled.
vacant notebooks hotel bathrooms
little blue bottles of shampoo
for those dead dolls in their dead dollhouses.
porcelain----
emily.
i closed the windows, skeleton keys straddling sanity. and she looked at her feet
and they were wrapped in skin--- and the hotel bathroom,
we are wrapped in skin;
the pricking
pregnancy of forgotten nouns, in my belly--- as she thinks of artifacts
i think of artifacts
and in this room, we come down laughing.
when hours pass and this door is opened.
the drafts of the door, opened, send chills shivering
wafting over the sallow heads of children
shallow ivy
twisted vines of ivy
that have positioned themselves
in a stance of relative disclosure
equipped with a recursive silence that blinds and
binds her feet,
wrapped in skin
as she came down laughing.
( we are casting off unnecessary equanimity )
in order to melt into the drunken winding dusk.
“my spirals have come undone, the dollhouses closed their eyes
tavern's windows blinding my light.”
so we drive.
we drive out of somewhere into nowhere,
on our way
to a not-even-anything-place----
but, perhaps-----perhaps we could
purchase some peace,
or find love in the eye of a needle.
the kind with a possessive gravity, a lust for destruction.
pulling you down,
pulling you down,
down,
down.
until you wake, find yourself drooling with eyes open. muscles slow. mind detached. a vague memory of something like a waking dream still sticking to your skin. the skin of your mind, sedated. shivers of pleasure. where the air hung wet and yellow around your ears and you could hear----- the buzzing blizzard of everything---pebbles shifting, bird feathers swishing, cars----always angry---the distance closing---and---
and it was warm.
for a few hours, anyway.
there's always the black to every white even tar has a little ether in it the up, and the down.
and i hang.
i hang--
unwitting captive
strange ride.
i find my hands my hands they are wrapped in skin, and i can travel for hours
wrapped in skin, going nowhere--
but up, down,
up down
down up
downnnn
nnnnn
up down up
up up up---
unraveling my own solidarity (for loss
under some stable middle ground must be a carnival
riding my eyes)
and when the daylight comes again
i will marvel at this snakebite
three spots of blood---
three artifacts, laughing.
wrapped in skin the skin
of a snake i am wrapped in skin.
and when the world came down
i heard
not a sound.
(not a sound
not a sound)
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