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( Astoria, New York )
THE ALLENTOWN AUBADES1. Sun Crawl I woke to breath on my neck a red haze above the Greenwood cemetery's gray mausoleum above the copper tree tops. A Mack truck passed. Gravel kicked and spit. Your chin scratched my shoulder, the sun spread over form giving form to feet fallen off the futon kinked limbs tinted lemon. The light slinked up the wall our bodies one shadow beast slid under the sheet skin tinged and tingled our breath separate sour sweat saliva salt. Still afloat with sleep I rolled opened to find your gaze graze beads glistened at the temple touched at the brow. The sun devoured us in one wide crawl. 2. Naked You Are Naked your flesh firm beneath my hand rough with hairy tufts on chest medial line I traced soft curls down the navel path. Naked your curves and angles led one place. Naked you rose like Spanish steppes you caught sun in your hair light in your eyes naked milky light trickled over plane and slope probed the shadows of crevice and mouth. Naked stretched long narrow beneath me our bodies interlocked two patterns on a border nipple to peck ab to rib outer to inner thigh. Naked clothes cast in a half-halo around the bed red leaves drifted past glass oak clothed silence silence echoed by two torsos tangled. 3. Body of Man Light fragmented body. Your hips marble limbs and torso ocher. Hatch marked. Hairs dark under arm nipple haloed chest thigh fanned. Scratched bulge and bone the vertebrae ladder climb down nape to glut hollow. What other way to describe this light? Electrical stria skeletal synapse entangled atoms commingling. Did two bodies become one? Body of man I dared not call you mine : your body yours my body mine so that when lips met hands interlocked we shared and did not possess. Even if at times I said my interpret the line question divide. Break this praise from its use.CIRCE’S LETTERPRESSShe turned them all to lead men feet and belly nicks lined up on the composing stick the i’s and o’s a’s and e’s each letter a face her job case her reverse harem of lost vowels type set and slugged to make a spell from line tension quads and ems brasses and coppers the string she tied round her galleys rivaled Wonder Woman’s lasso the skin she skimmed off ink fountains she formed into her imps the tympan packed prints tucked on the drying rack broadsides struck mid airAFTER JAMAICA, JUNEThat was the month the lights blew—first one then two over sink and tub both front and mid hall the silver lamp by the succulent the cup above the bed—but the globe out front flared gold the day the ajar fridge door stopped yellowing the milk—corner store and dollar shop pharmacy bin searched for watts and bulbs freezer slapped the loose revealed step stool climbed rusted fixtures unscrewed—the blackened ends shook like maracas metal ping on glass that tinny incandescent rattle that bell protest bright bangle.SPIRAL COMPACT FLUORESCENTIn Jamaica every light spiraled from its socket the twist like soft ice cream the glow bare and dim concrete-diffused and when we climbed the ridge to your family home soon to be sold Kingston's orange gold spread down the slopes clustered in bright nuclei thin for stretches thin up the hills where the trees choke and cloak like we cloak an embrace a kiss on the black veranda two shadows come together to block the light to unravel like a pear skin wrapped tight around a coiled bulb
I - Out-of-body
II - Eyes That Cover Us
III - Elegy for the Hidden
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