Ten thousand light years from Orion’s Arm,
my eye is naked and
distinguished. Your small satellite orbits
my dark regions with aim.
I am uninhabitable with my gas,
and dust, and hot stars
spiraling in mass distribution.
Call me Sagittarius A….
and I will call you instable,
with your fictional planets
swaying with indefinite motion,
your thick Dwarf Elliptical
cancels out my Galaxy
over and
over again.
I did not touch yesterday, like I say I did.
My fingerprints are missing.
I lost them on a glass man,
wrapped my hands around
his whiskey sour, like I shouldn’t have.
He mingled with fire over
victory, like a beast gnawing
on my shoulder
I looked over his shadow like I owned him,
but daylight quickly ended, now
here I am. Fingertips dripping
off frozen glass,
as miserable as I planned it,
and here I still sit,
alone and empty-handed.
there is no grace. Each flake is a poisoned needle
jabbing in my skin.
Every sting of winter is a piece of
her blue eyes,
and
his blue lips barely parted in a box.
I imagine his last breath and
wonder if it felt like Winter,
if it felt like the cold prick of
hell jabbed into his veins.
Winter has chained me to the past.
What is lost weighs more than everything
Winter has ever given. I imagine her singing,
and if she sounds like Summer.
I know that I am here now, and I can never go back,
but still, I wonder,
when it snows in the desert.
The sun lays September to rest,
my single tree quivers
against black canvas, frost steals my breath
and this night makes it hard to be a river.
My moon cannot gaze quick
enough in any direction, I stumble
over boulders, though these dormant feet stick,
one-side of heavy rubble.
Gentle, I offer, white whispers,
(and knuckles), as I lay my head to rest,
because, as he often does, the reaper
shreds nightly peace, to build a home in my chest!
it won’t be long
the Japanese death garden sings wildly
across the world
I whistle back, a soft. black tune
and lose my eyes to winter
I sleep with her on desperate nights,
her hard skin teaches me
God’s lessons.
I am a body of ache for men to pour their
pain into, she tells me how to behave.
I cry that I am to be a desert,
I am naked, on my way there.
She holds me quick, against her cold
and blows me into prayer,
I lay deep in hell, but I swear, God touches me here.
He reaches through me and pulls
out a song. He whispers, “it won’t be long”
then asks me, again, for prayer.
I wasn’t ready. I could deny that I was ready,
that I was black consequence,
late.
I had blind chances,
but sight breaks
like disinfectant.
His quiet minutes blew off the wind.
His face said that he had no
direction;
empty and careless,
and I was a thoughtful child
going East.
We were west on the river together,
he wanted to float
like fire wood, but my
blood was a red earth drink,
fearing love and
death and
everything that
sickens in between.
I wasn’t ready to lay my spine calmly
over salmon and
kill the iron blackness
that tightened me deep inside
the roots of the land.
Life after life I planted sorrowfully.
She murdered me
with lima beans and raw potatoes.
I was in love.
I was in life with her,
the river,
the sky,
the Earth,
and then she cast a shriek against
my roots;
a massacre of my protection.
The sun went down and
a pale-blue winter soul
slid between my thighs,
and now I am her,
and I can never be ready.
You stand tallest! Alongside mountains, looking down
at your insects below. Your long, strong arms
cross a heaving chest of a man; one who
drinks whiskey from God’s own hands.
Our trembling knees wobble past your
black Pinch Tassel’s. We would swing from
your silk, pin-striped tie if we knew
it would strangle you!
I have waited by the water.
I have slept on spore infected carpet
and have rotted away,
have been filed away,
in between four walls and
a blue jacket.
Do you want your coffee, sir?
Do you have a dead line, sir?
Can I give you a hand job, sir?
And the air stays cold,
Antarctica is near.
I live with a turtle
in cold corn field rows. He is hard.
Last time we visited a moon together,
he took my pen, his tricky art,
pliable concern caked dirty under
turtle nails.
He has not always been
a beast. Once, he had wings.
He hovered above sandstone.
I thought of his death. Afraid.
He would be ghost treasure feeding
corn field soil.
He was a well-made horse. Gallant.
Reinforced.
I bridled him. Caged him.
The Big Blue Marble called to him
with a voice
of adventure,
of freedom.
But, he was kept.
Trained.
I nailed his shoes to the dirt. One day,
I felt the Earth crumble beneath my
dainty feet.
Earthquakes and Eruptions.
The horse ran free!
I cried for a year,
spent one more in guilt,
then another in admission..
until, one firewater night brought him
back to me. He stood like a horse.
He spoke like a horse.
He drank like a horse.
But, he was not a horse.
His eyes had become chicken neck yellow.
Shifty.
He tried to stand as a horse,
but he startled
and ducked,
tucked himself inside.
A turtle. With a shell.
In a field.
Cold.
Hard.
Taking my pen because he hasn’t any thumbs.
The graveyard passes me; I am buried
in there, somewhere.
I never got a map.
I got sweet that sweet fragrance of sympathy
from
hands that still pulsate. But a map?
No!
Maps are cold. Indifferent. Without
reason or definition. Identical hands
to
hands laid away forever.
I had a fever for twenty years. It was
habit.
So, I wrote a note:
I am in the graveyard. There is no map.
It is cold, yet I am not.
This fever has warmed me,
blanketed me,
forever.
I hid the note in butter. An arrogant, cheap stick
wrapped in cold paper. The refrigerator
would keep the paper stale.
Then, I left. To the graveyard. It passes me.
It slides off me as if
I am butter. Melting.
In a fever.
A bad habit suddenly hitting my blood.
In my dreams
she comes, frostbitten;
blue asphyxiation.
Her lips like dried leaves,
brown,
crisp.
Her eyes streaked with trauma
and
under siege.
She commands me, summoning
my tremors with
her poisoned whistle.
I try to inhale,
but my lungs are missing!
I drop.
To my knees, in panic! They
have escaped!
I cannot find oxygen to grant voice
to tongue. She wrings me out!
Her eyes clamped tight
to my throat, twisting
her frozen corpse
to my
bone.
She has spread; I am cold,
White winter.
Alone.
maggiemaeijustsaythis 