Thursday, May 23, 2013

the mystery of nine mile marsh









sting hiss: steam blows
white lipped, slack cheeked
and foul, into the forced and
petal O of my mouth.
the compass pointed south:

air bubble to the heart.
the letting of my own changling
meat, the slow wet suck
of failure to thrive. lips flinch
with static.

i strike autistic at the fabric of
my nervous system, stemming
for my life: i will stop the jerking
of my muscles,

and the puppetry of my heart.
i am as ugly as the pustules
round my mouth. our lips
made a swamp where swampy
things burst to

breathe for me. i insist, i decline.
i will not be gassed like a sex doll!
blown up for your fine release.
ironed and stapled and taped into
an iron lung

this silence passing as peace.
the spasm passes through
my eye, a flicker, a flinching,
             

a brackish toss over your shoulder
straight

into the structures of my mind.
the tossing ocean sizzles like a
snail salted for dinner. i am
paying penitence with slow goings,

i am the salt lake, the great
continental divide- the result
of force and demand and machine
desire.

i am the water that set herself on fire.
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