Slippery Art

 musings on alkalinity

i was born into this place a bit of fire & a cancer

i was born 

a screech owl in the day, an angel after dark. never phased 

with the stones of the recently birthed, miles or gem. i slept as if 

my creation was a translation, split syntax yet essence the same, 

wrapped up in sheets dreaming of ascension & lost languages. i

ate like i already had teeth & screamed like it too. wisdom pulling 

at the edges of my gut: i understand what that animal is, i know 

his name, when a dog runs it’s towards, when a cat does it’s away. 

i never thought that a ruby fit july or my disposition, its color 

violent like the earth after she was birthed. i wanted to be the sky 

after she settled & reflected her breath with liquid salt. i wanted

to be my mother’s ring & maybe her pet for awhile. she said we used 

to be friends in past lives & lived where snow filled our lungs.

we lived where light won hide & seek but i still slept fine, always 

snug under the ever-shift of celestial parts. we were friends away

where rubies are the same shade as the sky / & in a different place, i   

suppose i may have cried instead of shrieked. the same day she 

adopted my first word, distinguishable from a howl, was the day 

she had her wisdom withdrawn from gums & placed in a metal dish. 

dizzy & swollen she called her kitten ike, like the sound of her 

teeth falling into foreign terrain. i never loved him because he   

wasn’t mine but he explained to me the difference of how we came into this 

place. that when a human runs it’s disparate, towards you & away.

swamp angel, not even a little brackish

i am not a salted girl. pour on me gallons of fresh water / i’ll soak

heavy & shake like a fed dog. i let my skin hang loose most times.

i do things everybody does but alkaline. imagine being ready to 

swallow pitcher plants & avoiding saline sponges overrun, while

texting mom. i am what your dry mouth thinks of in the morning. 

bitter, sweet / the patches of shimmer on any lake wished they’d

float as easy as me / the egret call wakes them when the sky turns 

from grey to a white, she sounds like she’s crying when she belts 

her morning bleats, keeps ‘em tired & sinking deep. i try to live 

without a vein of toxicity / you know / all i need is electrolytes 

from quenched thirst (& a light belief in karma), to keep on. 

i move like sand turning to glass or relentless wind in a flat place, 

in a place with no buildings & no trees. the only time acidity ever 

fixed me was after ingesting botched pasta sauce. i don’t need that

element. i am stained enough without it. i don’t need to heat up, 

break down, tear apart for a pastime activity. from what i hear 

that leaves you hollow. i want to be full of blossom & bud, carefully  

hand-fed from my spotless liver & revived from a midday wake. 

growing dull

they used to call me the sharpest thing in the abyss, i swear 

something fell from my jaw since then, there are gaps in sore 

places where there ought to not. i once ruled where tough stuff 

didn’t dare prod my fists. rat city reign, sound of smashed trash

or the courtier’s snickers. a destruction, or nuisance of cats is the 

phrase. from a kit my sisters taught me how to be bad. moonlight 

hunt on a roof, crescent sideways like a smile. we maneuvered through 

our realm as passing shadows, rushing gloom. we sharpened our claws

on bits of bones left out for luck. when sickness reached our lips  

we swallowed it & ill fizzled. when rodents rampaged we grinned, 

cranked the gates closed at dusk. i adorned my crown upside down in 

my mouth when it pleased me, meaning most evenings. sis & i swallowed

finches, snickered loudly, howled periodically, tripped only   

without witness, but mostly slept lazy. yeah, every night we curled 

up slow, two black dots in skeletons & snow. & all of it soothed me / 

now, i doze alone. now i wake over my own breath stench, the gold in 

my gums greening & impure. today, maybe i’m half-wild at best, 

tame beast puttering, the ancestor watching, a galapagos freakshow. 

solitary & strange, oozing inside my own feline frame. find me / 

drinking potions, staying vain in a hidden city. find me / between 

buildings in the dark lying / flat. find me / shedding clumped fur, 

eyeing my back. find me under the bed with one tooth still intact.

negentropy antidote / unravel with me little birds

never did i feel the weight of death as much as most. one day dirt or 

ash will contain my bones, organs, eyelids / the grave’s engraved

with someone else’s words. i’ll be okay if specks of me spin up into 

space, if i seep down into hades’ deluge, i’d refuse the fruit anyway

/ no need for sweet juice, being nothing is to crave not, & oh do i 

hate all my things. just to float, sink, remain beautifully still /

entropy as the work of the ‘verse. i won’t, call upon some gods to 

find me, suture me up with ardor & strife. i can breathe as moss, an 

insect, a raven’s tiny eyeball / you will light the match as with the 

millions before. i say, i’ll be gone before tonic goes flat or warm, 

which is first to come last. oh you / can’t expect this spectrum 

forever / candle wax may drip on your altar, not sure i’d be bothered 

if it lacked. drawn curtains, sky black / leave me to fertilize your 

petunias or some other meaningless task. keats sang to me outside

hannaford’s & i sang back. just wrap me in lace & leave me alone, 

think of me in a cat’s yawn or maybe a branch’s eerie upcurve. 

quarantine dream

when you made it to the summit, the gale turned malicious like a 

dog’s grief-filled howl / drew the spit right out of your mouth, 

heavy jaw, heavy hands, wet towels / fingers too stiff to zipper. 

this is what you’ll dream of tonight. tumble off the mountain into

your living room, black-light germ inspection proves in humbling busy 

wallpaper to simple spots. lethargic ambiance, lime green jello 

encases vintage furniture, your sister taunts & your grandma says to 

call more, her curtains draw themselves. “don't go through the red 

door. don’t go through the red door”, a shelf-voice implores. you 

climb into the hole in the floor, come out a monster / spotted 

fur, the morning light so perfectly cast on it’s red, ignites your 

body in roaring flames. what a shame the whole world can’t see you 

this way. take the amtrak for a day but the entire car is covered in 

ash / flashback to a house-fire that never occurred, the vast, the 

vast heat illuminance astounds. sounds of horns turn you back, the 

stop, once far away, has engorged. you hobble out of the red train door.

on top of the earth

resting in uncertainty

uneasy as poseidon’s flat, i breathe, in ocean air & bear terror in 

paradise. everyone / i know knows someone with a raspy voice. we’re 

all, fleeing to forests & pouring wine over cracked hands. the 

numbers the numbers is all that falls from mouths. me n g wake from 

slumber with / the essence of our dreams twisted with city dread. 

we left / everyone more or less in search of a flattened curve. the 

tension stays with us in bed, bunched sheets even with fresh air 

coming in, the beauty only serves us in the daytime, at dusk

it’s all shaken words, full screens, & janused declarations. i don’t 

know what to believe anymore. my body has never been more animated /

my brain has never been so extinct. slowly spudding moss from the 

folds, i drink elixirs that make the time pass like mad / made 

to hold liquid droplets inside, these days exuberance is deemed a 

liability. these days i have 12 of everything & somehow still am 

running low, the numbers the numbers keep people in line, i suppose 

they always have / boxes revealed by mayhem / known. these days even 

at the summit of the earth, the crows cry of heavy skies / remaining.

the clouds hold awareness of senescence, & it has just begun to rain.

a song for yoni

you’re something trailess & blissed like a moth’s dry kiss, words so spun & vernacular dry. 

try to find depth in a cashier’s cool goodbye,

but unphased with the cries of whom you claim most close. 

talking in rounds round the matter without a verdict. instead at odds like the

tension of your clothes, on two-toned skin like the face of gemini, 

ah, you tried to find the mind / with the highest post, now you’re

left with something close but not the living image. 

you chilled good with curly locks & thoughtless endocrine, till something medical like 

pneumonia had you musing deep. & days spent careening for meanings 

sent you right back to the past, hardly harmless anecdotes & 

flashbulbs & / mother said / the idol’s hands are the devil’s youth, 

or devil’s hands are the furthest thing from idle truth. you can’t   

keep time, you know that the toblerone of back then was from mars. 

you said some gentle things before you moved far away / but the 

drawers we’re still empty things like day bars. jetblue / you took the / 

772, got some airtime. you got bored with cloud dazing & card 

playing so you went up to the steward, asked for ginger ale 

& got denied. now as you lay with liquid lungs & darting thoughts corrupt, 

a nurse brings over sleep in time, but waterlines fine like ink 

from porcupine’s quills are etched beneath (your) skull, & that’s all. 

a witch anywhere but where she was birthed is just a tourist / an ode to jp

if i were home, maybe i could be more myself than here. with 

midnight flickering at the helm of a nightstand, curled fists &  

silver adorned fingers this is the way a witch should make her way, 

in tandem with bicycles & rats on the sidewalk / on the sidewalk, 

plum stickers linger & the jesus drinks free flyers would follow.  

i could walk heel-toe towards s’s home, hear the buzz of pumpkin  

ram’s. we’d plan a romp in the arboretum, we wouldn’t care what shape 

our shoes are in, please byob & prepare to get muddy! impromptu

party, r might bring one balloon but no one would remember a speaker 

/ on easter, deep thoughts would still be open & bugs & rats  

would be playing there. we probably wouldn't go, instead stare old 

men walking their pits / for hours / its bench-sitting or lying on   

asphalt while weeds grow through the cracks / i  would read one-draw 

tarots or debate the best bodega snacks. i’d never cry & live off     

purple skies until my cat came around our street corner. she’d roll 

around & sigh, guess she’ll set her loner persona aside, while i   

collapse onto my comforter & light / she’d curl in the crook

of knees, doze, dream, awake, before i even head to sleep

today i thought of everything that’s wrong / i wish i was a bat

today when i could’ve done nothing i accidentally microwaved an ant. 

after 44 seconds it was still kicking, as if the radiation wasn’t 

already coursing through, altering chemistry at the cell level. 

today when i could have done nothing i found little discrepancies / like  

devils / in your speech & circled them as a bat does a cage. 

in these, 33 days, i’ve tried not to meddle, tried to soak & sleep 

deep. stay in anyplace too long & it becomes sinister: 

lists of dangers stemmed from the lengthy stare into the abyss. today i was 

confused with a different part of the self than i'm used to, 

breathing from the throat like a smaller mammal / enamel in teeth 

breaking down / coffee & stomach acid & the like / 

today i convinced myself my insect bites would never heal & i thought 

of everything that is wrong, real or not: fear of the unknown / 

thirst / broken seals on new food jars / racing hearts / bright 

screens / frequencies that never come back / 

a rare phone call / bruised countertop hips / nightmares / daymares / falling asleep.

an end to muse on 

worms in your gut, teeming, packed / yes there’s been enough of that. 

we’ve been poseidon's plankton for awhile now / dying to be somewhere 

when the sun is out, i know the rays push wrinkles back, 

keeps the mind intact like a bottle of ting & beach-flat laying. i know it’s 

best to enact an end to muse on / it’s an end so you can cruise onto the next thing, 

read the arts & leisure section of the news. maybe a 

laid back application of banana boat is the most sane thing one can do... 

could be favored to curling up in the bath, infected pinwheel 

of thoughts bubbling up when a leg moves. maybe, 

safely pushing corn skins into gums with sheer eagerness & chewing ice cubes curb the 

blues of april, may the stain ever fade with bleached sun. 

the coming months could be as fierce as this, but you could use it to muse on.