Tag Archives: 2020

Self-portrait From Inside

 I am more confident. I guess 
 I decided two days ago  
  
 when I woke up with the feeling 
 that I was sweating sesame seeds.
  
 I heard a siren in the distance 
 and did not think it unusual  
  
 for this forested street. Before that, 
 a family member gifted me seaweed body oil 
  
 but I could not imagine putting on 
 more oil. All of it, like the past months, wrings 
  
 out of my bleach-sick hair and I would
 pluck it all out if I was not afraid. 
  
 There is pencil lead living in my left thumb
 (which makes me a compass, or android, 
  
 or rough draft) and in the back of my left eye  
 there is something foreign. I couldn't tell you.
  
 I imagine an oddity caused by blue light
 and google "blue light glasses" or "am I sick with:"
  
 autofill. Do you ever check the time and look
 at everything but the time? No use lying 
  
 unless it is down to sleep, of course
 it's all rain: how the words leave our mouths
  
 and cling to another, waiting for once
 to be drunk back hungry.

Dayward

  
 Pulled my face down in the mirror
 and felt a shift. Pulled the cord to close the blinds
 harder, no blue wash on the floor tonight. 
  
 The next room over feels ten degrees colder
 and the heat is past stolen, past steps. The walk
 down the hall is the slow take back of breath.
  
 The slow take of waking, like realizing you're sorry.
 It's the wrong time of year but it's all anatomy,
 your hair and your eyelids, buckwheat and hulls.

44 Gardens

 #1 is a bush by the sea
 and a seabird nesting within.
 Anything can be a garden.
  
 #2 is a topiary: my mother
 near tears after buying the wrong wooden planks
 for the vegetable box last summer.
 They aren't as tall as I thought, she says
 but pushes on, piercing bags of soil
 with her spade to overflow the box
 because she is too determined and that will be her downfall.
  
 #3 sits by the window with the most sun.
 We moved our fig tree inside once we noticed
 how the deer loved those fragrant leaves. And now
 the figs are finally coming in, but we miss the deer.
  
 #4 people call Oriental
 when they feel threatened by its perfect shapes
 and perfect control. This garden is a popular choice
 for photoshoots and old couples craving a bench. I'll admit
 to taking a photo near its magnificent red gate,
 wondering who built it 
 and what they looked like.
  
 #5 is not picturesque, but it thrives.
 Grandma scavenged her garden together
 and secured it with chicken wire and zip ties. A sole pumpkin grows hanging: regal and perfect.
  
 #6 smells like death and our dog knows this too. 
 On mornings when the grass is wet, I catch him digging up the compost
 because he is not afraid of me. I saw him once emerge
 with an unbroken eggshell between his jaw.
  
 #7 is a hackjob on the side of the road. The berries
 are too sweet and too polluted to eat. I recall that my grandparents
 sold berries roadside to survive. Once we made cobbler.
  
 #8 was beautiful and belonged to an old couple.
 I was called there as a Census worker and they did not speak English.
 I remember they were drying seaweed on boards in the driveway 
 next to pots of huge beefsteak tomatoes. As I left, 
 some of the seaweed was carried away by the wind 
 and I didn't want them to think it was me.
  
 #9 I saw on a rooftop in the city and the first word
 that came to my mind was oasis. I felt bad
 but that was winter anyways.
  
 #10 was three boxes on a steep hill behind Grandma's old house.
 From the upper window, the reek of grandpa's cigarettes
 settled on purple beans, later to be mixed into rice,
 later to be eaten by Grandpa. The same fumes cycled back
 through his system until they wanted out.
  
 #11 happened because I wanted my own snap peas.
 The vines gripped the trellis like baby hands, so quickly.
  
 #12-#28 burned down in a fire, unseen on TV.
  
 #29-#44 are still lost in the smoke.