Psychopomp Arrives

i.

dying blood and patience,

you change your eyelids

because they could not hide enough.

thin skin sits on the diving board,

bikini and cigarette.

you follow the prophet’s truck

and convince him to run for you.

did some part of you feel the guilt

when he did?

time locked arms with him

to keep him close, close.

bullet met soft inner tissue,

pink matter on pink chanel.

the fault belongs to no one

but the blame shifts with the wind.

ii.

distended belly and skinny legs,

dressing your living dolls

in complementary patterns and colors.

you put them on show

for the audience you stole them from.

please tell them to be who they will.

when foreign children point out

blue eyes and brown skin,

leave the squared torso and

broken nose alone.

she will carry that hate in her breast

but still bottle feed it to her daughter.

iii.

wreckage of skin and bone, you

lie limp on the mattress

in the southwest bedroom.

your beloved knew what he was

getting into

because he married you in the hospital.

perfect union of life and death,

you ask him why as he sponges

your neck, caved chest, thighs.

tell him to leave you there

to drown in your own lungs.

he washes your hair and

removes your extensions.

holy meticulous patience.

is this what you imagined love would feel like?

iv.

messenger of small town prophecy,

you twist the devils away

for the length of a pirouette,

then shriek for water.

barren mother, pick up the child

that not even the ravens touch

and give her the penny she deserves.

put her in your driveway castle

and pick up the next child.

v.

bright skull shining under green ceiling,

the guilt lines your stomach after the

hate, pride, lust, have passed.

and on the seventeenth day without

food, god made her honest.

twin sister of familial piety,

you told the executioner to taste

his own blood, dance with his own blade,

and he did.

resenting mirror and mother abandoned you

in the desert, summoning vultures

with a seance.

vi.

an ambulance without light or sound

leaves a glistening trail of funerals.

give me the night to mourn,

I will pack up your body tomorrow.

Excavation (Dwelling, Circa 1959)

This is a kitchen.

This is a wall.

This is termite trails.

This is cinderblock atrophying purple because monsoons won't let it be. Industrial radio in the

shape of a toolbox and dust settles on dust. The floors peel away. Death comes back to visit. Dog

piss gags tattooed smokers.

                                                                  How did they live like this?

                                                                                                   I don’t know.

The men open all doors and windows, let the gangrene feel fresh air. The house seems bigger

without drywall and linoleum, and I only see me inside the warped window. Cigarette butt on the

sill turns me red, orange, to gray again.       I cannot speak, the grief is not mine.       The southwest

bedroom gets fourteen extra inches while I inhale the dust of someone else's life.

The fruit trees are dying, except for the apples. The branches hang heavy and drop ugly worm-

filled fists to the wet dirt and weeds. Little bloated corpses melting in the heat, sweet cider

stench.       Don't take away the apple tree.        I pull up fragrant carrots planted by a lover

in winter, and eat them with grit and detritus because the pipes in the bathroom were poisoned.

            And the water has been shut off anyway.

I saved sunflower seeds from the funeral and swallowed three whole. Grow out my eyes and

ears, I whispered, but they didn't listen. Soil of the gut killed two of them. Only one grew,

prickly stalk over hot tongue, holding my mouth open to the sky. For three months I turned with

the sun, back and forth.       Repeat the motion, wait for the sun.       When the rains stopped, I cut off its

head and smashed its brains on the glass table. A smatter of seeds saved for the end of this life,

and the beginning of the next.

Another's Home

The breeze smelled like cake mix

and peeling bark and death. That spring

killed what grew in the winter,

and summer burned the evidence.

Sister bakes every night

the recipes of dead queen mothers

that call for more butter and blood

than we ever had.

We scavenge for ingredients,

scraggly buzzards scooping up

squashed snakes and beer cans.

My throat is full of canyon tree frogs  
who waited to escape when

we were finally alone in the

rusty gorge behind the new house

(that is still not our house)

Desert flood takes Sister back to

a homeland I cannot see,

and I sink in the mud, coyotes tasting

my skin before retching up

bile and poison.

I birthed myself from the stagnant earth

after gunshots swallowed bright lights.

               Sacrifice their honesty so

               I can walk again, an unfair trade.

I hitchhiked home, or

somewhere that smelled like it,
on the backs of half-known others.

A sheep in wolf’s clothing,

don’t tell Sister or the ancestors

will hear. French curses are not

tender, but cloying. Our bakery

sells its cake mix for cheap,

but I’ll bury myself in the Seine

before I try it again.

The first line of this piece is taken from the title of Diane Seuss's poem, "Do you remember that spring? The breeze smelled like cake mix."