The Funeral, Part 1

Milesly Rose

is dead.

Long live Milesly Rose.

What is This Place?

shut the door,
don't say a word
set your signal fires
before the dawn rises
come back here
and put me in the dark

I'm losing my faith
you're using your fist
your fist loves my face
I'm in love with its kiss

put your hands up
crack apart your chest
tear out my very heart
replace the very best of me

fragment

tell me all your loves, love
and I'll drown them in the black, black sea

Birthday Poem

You're twenty-three
and I don't know what to write you
anymore
I stick a pen down my veins
try to draw out
a less sluggish version of myself
Try to find the love
I had defined.

I'm sticky with you, even now
your skin covers my mouth
I breathe you in
a pin drops, echoes
collapses my lungs
I freeze

at the sound of your voice
the things I want to say -
they won't come out.
Just an endless refrain
echoing in my brain, repeating

yo te amo
yo te te amo
yo te amo
yo te te amo

Dragonwing

Because Jack went to Tangiers
and Allen loved Peter
and the rhythmic yawps of expulsation
exploded and
expulsed
you I me you me you went/go
to Fight.

The Future; Julio Cortazar

And I know full well you won't be there.
You won't be in the street, in the hum that buzzes
from the arc lamps at night, nor in the gesture
of selecting from the menu, nor in the smile
that lightens people packed into the subway,
nor in the borrowed books, nor in the see-you-tomorrow.

You won't be in my dreams,
in my words' first destination,
nor will you be in a telephone number
or in the color of a pair of gloves or a blouse.
I'll get angry, love, without it being on account of you,
and I'll buy chocolates but not for you,
I'll stop at the corner you'll never come to,
and I'll say the words that are said
and I'll eat the things that are eaten
and I'll dream the dreams that are dreamed
and I know full well you won't be there,
nor here inside, in the prison where I still hold you,
nor there outside, in this river of streets and bridges.

You won't be there at all, you won't even be a memory,
and when I think of you I'll be thinking a thought
that's obscurely trying to recall you.

My Eyes Flew Open, But the Dark Was All To See

You swept through the pantry,
upset the bottles and canisters,
the boxes and jars alike.
You threw it all on the tiled floor,
stirred it about and mashed it to a powder
so fine and sickly-looking no dog would touch it.

It's been two months, you've fed me
a strict diet of salt and iron
washed down with whiskey and midnights;
opening my mouth to fill a belly
used to sugars and processed meats.
You opened my mouth, and blinded my eyes,
purring "It's my heart, it's my heart I'm feeding you,
it's my heart you taste."

And though tastebuds detected something sick,
something dirty, a poison unnameable,
I swallowed out of hunger,
out of starvation.

For it was good at first, the proteins
and the flavor of your tears
had not quite touched my tongue.
But, oh darling, we've reached something rotten,
some blackness of decay.

I don't know what lie she fed you
that such cruelty should come to taste.
I shut my lips, you wrench them apart,
and rust covers all.
I have long known what fear is made of,
it is the first recipe a girl learns,
all oxidized blood and long lost embalmed loves
washed down with gin and sharp movements.

Shall I sputter and spit you out
or shall I keep to swallow,
digest the wretched wreck under the surface
only to vomit back a purity for you?

In a heat like this, only the winter can know.
It is February, there is nothing to eat but you and me
and only the winter can know.