Adam

Something was missing
from his anatomy. He searched
his body without knowing
what he was looking for,
what it would feel like,
how large it was.
His hands always landed
on his smooth stretch of belly.
That had to have been significant.

How lonely, to bear no mark
of being tethered to anything.
How relieved he felt,
seeing Eve, cheeks full of apple,
handing him an answer to consume.
How incomplete it felt,
being perfect.

Each day is a rewrite of the rest so far.
Today, I write myself patient.
I give myself breaths that fill my lungs
like two plump balloons.
I float rather than walk.
When I open my mouth,
the sound of light rain on leaves comes out.
If it hurts where the skin is stitching back together,
I name it lovely and divine.
When I look at myself,
I do not use words like broken, or burned;
in fact, I try not to use words at all.

Tomorrow, I will be angry again.
I will name the violence in and around me,
make my own fire and watch what lights up.
I will not be afraid of hearing, of creating, dissonance.

But first, I need a bed as soft as a night sky.
I need the harmony of breath.
I need a peace so deep
I may move in and out
without kicking up the mud,
without making a ripple.

Ten Things I’ve Been

1. The hunter.
2. The man on the screen.
3. The fire of a hungry torch.
4. The stone of the walls.
5. The sea cradling relics in its arms.

6. The deer.
7. The man on the screen.
8. The smoke in her lungs.
9. The sound trapped inside.
10. The mist rising from the awakening earth.

1.
Before something is born,
there is discomfort.

There is nausea, vomiting,
the body cleansing itself of toxins.
There is the swelling of feet and joints,
the stretching and growing of protective tissues.

There is pressure on the organs and diaphragm,
pain in the breasts and back.
There is the widening of blood vessels,
the feel of flinging limbs against the walls of the uterus.

Before something is born,
it is carried.
Before something is born,
it acts on the body that holds it,
preparing for the act of radical severance.

2.
The videos and photos show city after city,
signs and hands in the air,
masks held over mouths.
Hundreds of thousands of bodies
bearing weight older than their bones.

The shops are boarded up.
The newsfeeds are saturated with names, verdicts, quotations.
There are voices advocating change,
silence hiding from it.
There is stretching, swelling, discomfort,
as everyone is confronted by truth
they must make room for,
or else shut doors against the burning streets.

3.
We know not what we carry,
but it is much more than the past,
much greater than what we already contain.

I was wearing my brother’s pants
when I got in the accident. The denim was broken in
to where it felt like my own skin.

In the right hand pocket was a mala,
prayer beads made of aquamarine,
made by one of my best friends.

In little black shelf above the gearshift
was a ring made by another dear friend,
a protective crystal glued to a metal band.

The rips in the knees were the first things I saw
through the swirling white smoke of the airbag.
As I sat on a bench nearby waiting for the police
and looking at the passenger side, completely crushed in,
the beads slid through my damp palm.
The ring lay exactly where I’d left it
when I went through the front seat
picking possessions out of broken glass.

How powerful, to wear each other
over our own bodies.
How lucky we are,
being delivered each day by hands we trust
into a sudden and dangerous world.

Stuffed Cat

It wasn’t what it would have expected to become,
but it had no memory of ever having
expected anything. It just was. A strange
assortment of grey, fuzzy cloth, thread,
stuffing, and plastic. The junction of
the head and body pieces was feeble,
the head flopping weakly to one side.
The little girl fell asleep clutching it
with all of the strength of her tiny arm,
pressing it firmly to her side. Children
are so clumsy with life. It spills out of them
and stains everything they look at. The more
faded its eyes became, the more energy
collected in its soft fibers. The secrets she
whispered into its ears, the songs she sang
as she toddled, holding it by one paw.
It started to feel her terror when the lights
were turned off, wonder with her
in her solitary flights. It became its own form,
the giver of the comfort that she needed,
that she learned she could create.

Octomom

I wonder how Octomom feels
when she looks at each
of her wriggling octochildren

their young faces deepening
in character, their movements
turning into the patterns

that define their personalities.
Their instinctive reactions.
Their wants. Their fears.

Their hiding places.
Their strategic means to their desires;
their desires.

I wonder what it is like
to live in a house
raising 8 little mirrors.

I wonder who I would secretly favor.
I wonder who would send me
into rages beyond all reason.

I wonder who would occasionally sleep in my bed
till she was thirteen.

I wonder who would disappear
to his room for five years
leaving me to speculate about his happiness,
his struggles, his entire world.

I hope I would be able to hold each one
without shame. Leave copies
of his favorite books by his door.

Rub her back until she falls asleep.

Advice from America’s Psychiatrist

Consider the source of the pathology.

Consider the first “real Americans.” The people
with beliefs so radical, they chose, or were forced to,
leave their countries and start over completely.
Consider their desire to remain superior
to the point where all they built
was on the backs of other races.

How tightly you must clutch the ideology
that brought you thousand of miles from home.
How close you must hold the part of you
that was stolen.

Fear is inherited. Dissonance is a legacy.
You are trapped in these cycles,
either savagely hunting your ghosts
or simply resurrecting them.

Consider the source.
Consider the conditions in which
you were birthed.
Consider identity theft.
Consider the preoccupation with domestic terrorism.
Consider Trayvon Martin Halloween costumes.
Consider how many kinds of real Americans there are.
You are in pieces. You are a vicious cycle.

Consider your stories.
Consider changing the ending.