Wentworth, I guess

I think something is missing

From me

Or my life

Whatever that means

It feels like there’s an extra space

Shaped like a light bulb

Or a crescent moon

Just below my sternum

What belongs there?

What ancient piece has been removed

From under my nose?

What it in my sleep?

I dreamt of an operation

On my ribs

It must have happened then

The scalpel slipped

And that artifact slid

Out of my life

Into some far realm

Filled with complicated shapes

A year ago I wrote a poem about you

Or an image bank, anyway

I’ve never been clear on the difference

I guess it wasn’t properly ABOUT you

It just CONTAINED you

Or some of you

A slice of you

One sliver one night

I wrote you as an image of belonging

“Seven black chairs at a metal table,

Robin’s bourbon and Davy’s vape”

And today I thought about you at the DMV

“Davy said he liked those shoes”

The man at the Concealed Weapons counter has the exact same shoes as me

And you said you liked them

You also said you liked my woven shoes

You said I had good shoes

There’s a Deliah Smith video playing silently on the screen

And I think you probably would have something interesting to say about it

You knew the origin of the word “robot”

Or you sort of did

You thought it was probably Polish

It’s actually Czech

A year ago I wrote you into a poem

Or an image bank, rather

There’s a little patch of clover in the rocks

What is clover for?

I’m watching a house sparrow hopping

And a finch

When we sat at your kitchen table to welcome in the new year

You were watching a finch

And I was watching you

There’s a cold wind coming from the south

And that reminds me of you, too

Extract and reshape me

I am a husk

Pull out my soul and remold my body

I am a husk

Break my bones and twist my skin

I am the kind of person that breaks things

Last spring, I shattered my mother’s glass tea kettle for no reason

And now

The breakable boy

Is all made of brittle bottle glass and dried out grass.

He stands, statuesque, and resolute;

He can still himself while a whirlwind passes through,

But his heart is made of broken bottle glass:

Shards on strings flutter in the wind,

They catch the sun like little silver pieces or the armor of fairytale princes;

Today I woke up crying

I woke up

And before I opened my eyes

The silver fox bounds, twirling like ribbon, lithe and graceful

He flies on wings invisible.

The arctic wasteland

Cold

Desolate

Impeccable

Silver dashes through, a dazzling shine under the Alaskan sun

“Стоп!” he cries as

A hunter

Booms through the tundra

The shot rings

Rings

Rings

Rings

Rings

I have wanted

So much for so long

And I had believed there would be a day

Five years from now

Four years from now

Three years from now

Two years from now

One year from now

Now

But as the Now has arrived

The day has not

And I am left with a want

A vicious flame

Eating my heart

Progressing out to my bones

And muscles

And skin

Consuming me in want that shows its face as rage and impatient avarice

Want

Want

Want

Want

Need

The need is devouring

How can I sleep as I’m burned alive?

How can I eat?

This is not love

This is the righteous ownership

Of an entitled narcissist 

Broken glass on kitchen tiles

My hands are stinging

The light switch is broken now

I try to tape it together

Cold, wet bread

Oh God, it’s revolting

But I’m hungry

I force it

Sweets sugar shocking sour tastes

I hum Isaiah 45 under my breath

Hands reaching out like God and Adam

A dusty hallway, the grains beneath shoes shift, barely there, but there all the same

Shoes squeaking in the entry way

An empty wallet at the grocery store, just short of enough

The woman in front of me can pay, I can’t

My face warms, my hands freeze

TV static I can hear too loud

My hearing is going on my right side

People swarming

Bees swarming

Spiders swarming swarming swarming

Sorrow is a gravestone half crumbled, stained with rain: “KNOWN UNTO GOD”

Sorrow is rain in a dirt parking lot, sharp stones, a goat head in my foot

Sorrow is a kind of bitter drink, sharp and pungent

Integrity is an antidote, a fiery whisky tossed back with practice

Integrity is the sting in my knuckles, the sear of the shock of the pain

Integrity is marching through mud, kicking through weeds

Faith is the sleep after crying, the calm-sweet-simple

Faith is the weight in these knees, the press of these hands

Faith is knotted bread and candles

I. The Rifle

A leather arm chair you can sink right into. It welcomes you the way quicksand does: slowly, menacingly. The old mahogany desk with its formidable, cavernous draws of classified files from the war. The portrait of a soldier hanging up high, clear-eyed, serene, like a watching angel. And the gun hanging over the fireplace. It draws your eye, you can’t avoid it. That gun. That gun.

II. Westgate Las Vegas

That jacket is too red under the Vegas stage lights. Bright and shining fabric, like a valiant knight’s suit of armor. The gold brocade and faintly floral print stand out against the haze of the room. Each button is a gold coin in a murky pond. The wearer of this marvelous jacket is throwing a fit on stage. “I write the songs!” he screeches. “I write the songs!”

III. 

A black metal table, seven chairs

Davy’s vape and Robyn’s bourbon ice cream

A purple, felt-covered backpack

Home is my head on your shoulder and your head on mine,

Neatly stacked together like little building blocks.

Home is the couch in your basement that swallows you whole,

Soft and welcoming like corduroy quicksand.

Home is the dusty sunlight from the screen door that filters in,

Filling the room with butterscotch light.

Home is how you smell like strawberries,

Even in the winter.

Home is the click of the basement door.

Home is settling, sinking softly.

Home is feeling the most myself because I’m with you.