fairytale coda

the woodsman returned home
with the wolf
tossed over his shoulder,
smiling grimly
through a haze of blood -

the sun in the fairytale forest
buzzed through the trees
like an alarm,
a warning.

the heroes, the sidekicks,
the kings, heroines,
& all their animal friends
crept warily
out of their warrens -
spite lolling in their eyes
like a growing glaucoma -

what now, villain!
- their boisterous cry,

come back the echo -
what villain, now?

the seafarer's wife

she keeps a bird
that only sings
when it rains,
to muffle the sound
of the world outside
being systematically drowned -

the ceiling leaks,
regardless,
dripping over the
left side of the bed
where she sleeps.

by 3 AM
we are floating
in our own bedrooms,
laying stiffly
beneath the sheets.

she accuses me through grit teeth
of leaving the window open.
&, i, of course,
deny everything.

when the water reaches
the level of our mouths,
we swallow reflexively
until the room is dry.

the outlets drip
with sparks,
snarling like angry dogs
at our waterlogged silence,

& when we sleep,
we wash up on a monochrome shore,
islands away from each other,
even
in dream -

harvest

the wallpaper peels
& beneath it,
pulpy fruit she'd planted
the night of their marriage.
she'd buried it
with a sly smile
beneath the baseboard,
crouched,
whispering lovingly to it
after the wring of a summer day
& with sweat
leaking from her brow -

he puts his hand to it
& it comes back to him
sticky, wet -
it has a heartbeat.
he is afraid it will explode,
or rot.

years have passed
since they split in the middle,
since they,
for the first time,
squeezed one another
& writhed in the juices.
he is,
inside himself,
withering, wrinkling -
can feel his organs
dying on the vine

the day will come,
he realizes,
sitting cross-legged on the bed
in the humid dark,
when he will desperately
eat at the walls,
and then, still not sated,
suck out the wine
of his own heart -

wrath

son Thunderstorm,
in vesture of charcoal,
scourging the earth
with lightning -
lacerating the ground,
tearing the sky
like a piece of
construction paper
in his fists -
the crack of thunder:
the grind of his molars -

the ocean groans
like a mother
& her hair
turns white with worry.
she frets at the shore
while casting her eyes up
at her wayward child.

& us, below, are scrambling
into our houses,
peering out of our windows,
staring in awe
as he passes,
returning reluctantly
towards his mother's embrace -

...

in the far room,
behind the wafer-thin walls,
i can hear her
gnashing her teeth,
weeping,
as if to make an
ocean of her own
to give birth to
the rage in her womb -

Ceres

she kept a garden -
a furious garden
of fulminant hue,
like a stalled explosion
whose fire faded
with the season
as though in time-lapse.

her hands in the dirt,
shoved deep into the earth,
fingers wriggling like roots,
blindly in the shifting depth.
it seemed she was
hunting for something,
perhaps something lost
a long time ago.

she stayed out till the
sky turned charcoal,
till the match of the sun
fizzled into the horizon,
the wiry, arboreal shadows
bowing over her,
solemnly.

eventally, bats,
winged jigsaw pieces
toss themselves across
the ashy sky
& mosquitoes clamor tinnily
at her ears.

she sighs
like a parting prayer
& returns indoors,
cheeks smudged
with the tender soil.

she smells of it,
raw,
like something just picked,
wet
& new -

stasis & her child

they tried to leave the city
but never made it
to the front door.

their limpid eyes
filled with tears
that clung to their corneas
& stagnated there.

words made landfills
of their mouths &
they choked on their rot.

they lay together
& every night,
fused together at the hips.
in the mornings,
they wearily used a scalpel
to separate.

their breath purred,
stuck in their lungs
like a reluctant cat,
peering past their yellow teeth
before darting back down.

- & her son, her son!
stalled in the womb,
growing hair, nails,
whose teeth lengthened
& whose bones stretched -

he grew to be eight
inside of her.

there they are,
tottering towards the television,
blindly shuffling
around the easy chairs,
suffocated
by static

widow ((unfinished?))

1
the rotting flowers
of the rhododendron,
limp & sagging,
turning ashen
like a drunk
at sunrise -

the malnourished cat
with a sad bell
at its throat,
mistrustfully peering
at passersby.

2
she, in her boudoir,
furtive fingers
nipping,
pinching
at her thinning hair,
watching the muscular clouds
ganging up on the windowpane.

she is comforted by
the layers of dust
over everything she touches.

3
the harrow of evening!
chilly rain,
remorselessly attacking
the shingles -

the attic rattles
with the possibility
of ghosts.

4
the garden, overgrown
with itself,
bulging outward,
spilling over the fence,
clinging to the boles
of knotty willows.

5
in the wet postpartum
of the storm,
the shadows at the gate
shiver,
jiggle the bars,
& slouch off,
defeated.

6
in the ballroom,
a toothless harp
with a tarnished frame.
a chessboard,
one move away
from an impasse.
the fireplace stinks
of cold ash.

7
the wisteria claws
at the side of the house,
vainly stuggling,
heliotropic -

8
she will,
without fail,
stumble through the graveyard,
murmuring eulogies
to her brethren;
runs her fingers,
tremulously,
over her last name
etched again &
again

with her other hand,
her nails tattoo
another name
into her palm.

9
she totters home & sees
her house,
bellowing silently,
blank windows like unlidded eyes
fixed on vague,
faraway mountains.

10
once inside
her ears fizz
with the terrible echo
of silence,
filling the empty rooms
like an odorless gas -