Selected Publications
Uncene
In the uncene, everything
that will have been is
already given. Incl.
frontier fantasies, fetishes
and the religions that
mastered them. Incl.
zones of exclusion
and the institutions
who loved them. Incl.
the pretense of inclusion
and the potential for un
earthing a stratigraphic form
ula for history and its accidents.
(There will have been only depth
left. No surface to speak with
or against which to gauge
the injection well’s slurry.)
There will have been fissures
and fractures, ghosts gumming
sarcophagi with a tenderness
already unknown. There will
have been neither post nor un
dulating sympathies to mask
the dead who were already
never seen, no space left
to hold something like an eye
which would have been filled
by what will have covered every
thing, incl. the wings of creatures
of air and the surface of the sea.
Incl. redemption stories and the new
worlds they suggested, casually, as we
once did, as we will have done again
and again as if we hadn’t already
seen what we would make of them.
Proof of Harm
This one measures tidal flux against plastic gyre
crest against breast of least tern brown pelican
more brown now but also more red and yellow the slick turned rainbow
the bow of the boat nuzzles against the soft floating bodies in animal fashion
in which nose is more trustworthy than hand
in which scent alerts hair and skin index of harm or help contiguous
but not synonymous with language which could be called reason
This one measures the speed of sound against the body
when one person calls for help
vs. another
when one is told to raise their hands
when one is asked to raise their hand and is called on
and asked to answer
vs. told to answer for
their body
This one measures those two knocking against each other
crest against breast as one person least brown calls for help
another person is told to raise their hands more
brown more red the sick turning
toward the bow raised against the soft bodies
as one asks which is more trustworthy and scent alerts skin
that is contiguous with language
and synonymous with sound
of bodies knocking against the hull
Ninth Letter, Spring/Summer 2017
Fossils in the Making
open a door
the center a threshing, separating you from
airplane, no
bird : machine? Condor etching sun
with wing
watch &
be seen
its body an elegy
in the making
marking &
unmarking
this being
letting me
let me
be
seen
Denver Quarterly, Vol. 50, No. 4 (2016)
The Waiting
give me any lyre-like thing
I’m on my knees
what
I’m on my knees
*
the swamp I move
through
careful
your own drowning
is at hand
*
presume breath &
you will always be
disappointed
presume death
& be
a hand reaching
*
counting backwards
from nothing
wake me
Lord
the waiting,
take that too
Salamander issue 42