dormant under hot water at night;
blown fuses, blackouts, eclipses, bouts of
hysterical blindness are all invitations
to water, heat, and gravity’s breath—
beneath bleach and laboratory pine on tile,
always the rotsweet smell of damp turned earth
I stand in dense coal forests, eyelids sealed
with rainwater and the hiss of static,
fevered lips on both ears whispering: tell us,
where are the bodies buried? Is this
where all those luminous bodies are buried?
incessant hoofbeats on the dead crown canopy
pounding earthwords, snapping limbs long broken
I have no eyes left; I gave them all away
to dull drums thudding thousand-time,
and only then did I see that voiceless rider
as dream dolls of white bone china
were trampled under ebon shoes:
there are no more bodies but mine, twitching
hot rains astride the galloping new moon
(first appeared in volume 22 of Hawai’i Pacific Review)