He will bring all of the candles
he said chocolate helps, jsyk
and she bought a bag of tiny tangerines,
and I can see myself diving right into them
like when Amanda opened that tiny clementine
and she told me to look at its puffy section
like a little slug on her leaf hand
and its shell
its pith a neon orange baby foam
and I put it between the rows of my teeth
and I teethed
and I teethed
all night
and I teethed
all night
when I was 18 I listened to yo la tango a lot
in the tall dark dormroom
and I festered
(I asked you yesterday, as if this is a question, what do I do now
and you said,
wait
wait, and brood
and I said how can you wait for nothing?)
when I was 18 listening to yo la tango
I knew what I was doing
but I used to sleep till 4, when it would get midwestern scyscraper village dark
and now I am up at 4, before it is grey spring western light out
and I am very aware of the mountains,
big fool rocks
the continental divide
the crying light where the tears flow down east or west
and some get to your rivers, and some get to mine.
Maggie Nelson said something about waking up with your weeping, don't write me anymore to tell me about it
because she knows you're so in love with your weeping
or something like that.
And maybe you truly are
but I truly am not
I am not the type anymore
when I was 18
I would scream into the bedclothes
I would rip & sob & cling & claw at my smoke hair
and my young face
and I couldn't now scream on the patio, in the livingroom, into the couch clothes
and throw up the young foam
my young brain foam
as my throat makes a sieve for it
and its goop pushes out, around, tries through the cheesecloth
to be swallowed, into the mash bod
or to be vomited
in bubbles & sobs
See now I'm 28,
going on 29
in about 20 days, I guess
so my brain is still there, it found my head again eventually
and my heart crawled back
slunk back, eyes downturned, embarassed,
out from where my bean stomach lives in struggles
and all of the organs
fell back asleep
in their gooey cradles
