like a great white crane she stood on one foot among the ovid and the shakespeare with her daffodil white blonde head cocked at a perfectly calculated right angle
frozen burning t.s. eliot and e.e. cummings
to the back of her eyes
her hand reaches deep into the stream
and she fishes out a wet, sparkling, flipping anthology of walt whitman and devours it





with painful honesty act two i hold myself at night. naked. i bury icecubes and thaw them in hot, breathing flesh hold myself like mother holds pearl oyster keeps a small, white child inmate within salty loins; i love myself more than any lover could. appreciate me more than anybody appreciates me i hold myself, afraid, keeping rising-falling-inhaling-exhaling ribcage together and breasts and arms, fingers and toes and head; tendons and vessels and lungs and heart together i hold them together stronger than paperclips and duct tape are lonely fingers holding up a card house in a hurricane