Chapters (43)

tongue to nipple in a well-lit parking lot, swerved

into traffic while unbuttoning my shirt—

There is a woman

waiting for me to marry her or forget her name

forever — whichever loosens the ribbons from her hair.

I fill the bathtub for an enemy, lick the earlobe

of my nemesis. I try to dance like firelight

without setting anyone ablaze. I am leaning over

the railing of a bridge, seeing my face shimmer

on the river below — it’s everywhere now —

Look for me

in scattered windshield beneath an overpass,

on the sculpture of a man with metal skin grafts,

in patterns on mud-draggled wood, feathers

circling leaves in rainwater — look. Even the blade

of a knife holds my quickly fading likeness

while I run out of ways to say I am here.

How to Disappear Completely

You are quarter ghost on your mother’s side.

Your heart is a flayed peach in a bone box.

Your hair comes away in clumps like cheap fabric wet.

A reflecting pool gathers around your altar

of plywood subflooring and split wooden slats.

You are rag doll prone, contort,

angle and arc. Rot. Here you are

a greening abdomen, slipping skin,

flesh fly, carrion beetles. Here

where bullets found shelter,

where scythes found their function, breath lost

its place on the page, where the page was torn

out of every book before chapter’s close.

This is slippage, this is a shroud of neglect

pulled over the body, this

is your chance to escape.

Little wraith,

bend light around your skin until it colors you clear,

disappear like silica in a kiln, become

glass and glass beads, become

the staggered whir of an exhaust fan,

a presence only noticed

when gone. Become origami.

Fold yourself smaller

than ever before. Become less. More

in some ways but less

in the way a famine is less.

We will forgive you for not being

satisfied with fitting in our hands.

We will forgive you for dying to be

a bird diminutive enough

to fit in a mouth without being crushed.

Man Matching Description

Because the silk scarf could have cradled

a neck as delicate as that of a cygnet

but was instead used in last night’s strangling,

it is possible to marvel at the finish on handcuffs,

because I can marvel at handcuffs

pummeled by stones until shimmering,

the flashlight that sears my eyes

is too perfect to look away, because

a flashlight has more power on a southern roadside

than my name and blood combined

and there is no power in the very human

frequency range of my voice and my name is dead

in my mouth and my name is in a clear font on a license

I can’t reach for before being drawn down on,

because the baton is long against my window,

the gun somehow longer against my cheek,

the vehicle cold against my abdomen

as my shirt rises twisted in fingers