Alcyone

I have this soul that’s full of soil, and be honest: is there anything more terrifying than a stem showing up from the nowhere of below? My engagement stretches string thin. Someone gave out my lock combinations. My corners are chipped. The flesh beneath reveals a pleasant surprise. The beetles seem brighter in the pitch-black night. I am night. I am bells. I am tongues of noon. I watch a bee born in the quaintest moment. The body cancels the soul. I say prayers and rap on windows to be let in. I feel the shame slide through my smirk. I have a bruise the size of a handful. I populate men in a way that will surely someday be recognized. I sleep with skeptical ghosts. I carefully watch their mouths open. I frame babies with my body. I hang myself on others. Am I missing chances?

No, this feels nice: these mouths. I want to be banished. I want to return. I want to fascinate someone’s ignorance. I want to shake coins from myself. I want to fill my bathing suit with corkscrews. I want to marrow and curdle. I want to smell of elderberry and hair. I want to watch the algae blossom on my bed post. I want to feel the pain stutter up. I want to mourn, slow and plump. I want the battle to grow deep and homesick. Am I lost or found?

No, the lost are an invention of the finders. I have seen the clock, chalked and lisping. I have seen surgeons overcome by pieces of puzzles. I have adjusted, become all iris and anemone. I have been strange and inviting. My nerves have been my foes: a dull caper. I have written boring poems like thick thighs. I have watched the ceiling ride around the room. My mentors have torn my work apart like chicken bones. I have been cracked open, jacked off, spiraled up. Where am I now in this careful aging?

No, this is a becoming. This is a yearly debut. This ballroom black-foots. On the dance floor, I am a landlocked country. I am doused in limericks, needles, tatting. When you dance around me I become thumb knots and tack bends. I run stunt kites up into your hair with my hands. You glide joints. I celebrate High Holy Days. I fiddle your arms with my arms. I exhale like a rocking horse. My gown reveals me.