Like half eaten apples
naked mothers pose for their well-dressed daughters.

Wind in a glass drowning in its own voice.
In the throat of a rose language is strangled.

The world is a hollow humming and
the limits are lace.
A thousand tiny fingers make beautiful mistakes.

The traffic is a ripping seam.

A wound to the back of the heart.
An axe in wood.

Prayers on my fingertips.

From Claire Gaskin’s collection, a bud.

light arrives before the car drives past and is gone

just placed in pebbles the words amore mio in the cemetery

headache cicadas deafening the river fast

breath is happening the rain is happening here there is no better

every seventeen syllables cicadas leave this shell on a blade

From Claire Gaskin’s collection, a bud.

Leaning on the language of leaving
and the road a line from a song,
the door smiles open

After the crescendo
the tick of the clock
and a car driving past

Headlights behind her
she is approaching me
moon walk with my daughter

From Claire Gaskin’s collection, a bud.

in her hands
static
staring into the flame patting the castrated dog
learn to sleep in the middle of the bed he is not coming back

static
the tick of the clock knocking the right side of my brain into the left
learn to sleep in the middle of the bed he is not coming back
just to sink as the tide goes out surrendering to the pull

the tick of the clock knocking the right side of my brain–into the left
ambushing the house with blue and cockatoos
just to sink as the tide goes out surrendering to the pull
one metal ant scratches its painful way through veins

ambushing the house with blue and cockatoos
the flowers have been dead in the vase beside my bed three weeks
one metal ant scratches its painful way through veins
my feet mis-spell

the flowers have been dead in the vase beside my bed three weeks
my feet a century away
my feet mis-spell
the smell of vase water on my hands

my feet a century away
time is chilled in water
the smell of vase water on my hands
this is the day when the heart attacks the bird in the sky

time is chilled in water
is the touch of tenor on fingertips
this is the day when the heart attacks the bird in the sky
a knife under the pillow for cutting memory

is the touch of tenor on fingertips
the bare ribs of words the wind blows through
a knife under the pillow for cutting memory
falling off the edge of the page

the bare ribs of words the wind blows through
staring into the flame patting the castrated dog
falling off the edge of the page
in her hands

From Claire Gaskin’s collection, a bud.

If my head is a bunch of flowers,
my throat is a vase choked with stems.

If the wind is drunk it explains the knocked over tables.

If my mind is a membrane stretched over the mirror,
the sky is broken.

If I cannot taste fire my breath is scented with dank flower water.

If the rain is ink then the face at the window is unreadable.

From Claire Gaskin’s collection, a bud.

I saw hands to a throat like a shadow play in a tent

I saw one man place the head of another to the edge of–the metal bin

I saw the blood from plums dripping down my brother’s forearms

I saw my mother on her hands and knees scraping candle wax off the marble altar

I saw Michelangelo’s stairs flowing like a river

I saw my daughter stealing daffodils

I saw my lover forget me

From Claire Gaskin’s collection, a bud.

I grip the wheel too tight.

The flowers meditate on the fruit.
Calm enough to be equal to ideals.

Even with my eyes closed I knew it was him because the
——wood groaned
under the weight of his reason.

From Claire Gaskin’s collection, a bud.

–1
I am a horizon,
thrown over the shoulder, like salt

Sliding down the wall in the hallway onto the floor

Many black doors banging like wings

–2
I need to find a
place for the river in me
for the dead grey tree

His arm around the
horizon of my shoulders
in a photograph

–3
Dream the fingers off the wheel
this is the hour of horizons

tapestries and divisions
the hour in a glass

kiss the salt

From Claire Gaskin’s collection, a bud.

His cloud sits down with him, he
tucks it into his pockets

A swarm of bees landed on his mouth as a baby
They called him honeymouth

From Claire Gaskin’s collection, a bud.

His bleeding was into a shallow garden.
The sky comes down around the house.

It is a dead room
with unusually high sound absorption.
His sweat was dripping in my face.

My body not a crime scene.

Regret a pearl pursed on her
clay lips.

From Claire Gaskin’s collection, a bud.