talking

sometimes i say to me: "move on

the birds too close to your skull," 

followed by straits of nothing, yellow dots, 

my lines like loops are tangles are 

continuous, are tangled. i hold

the rails. i forgot how to spell 

your concerts of muttering, aching 

garbled show tunes, they shelter 

beneath my tongue like pencils 

in a soft-red case, somewhere else 

there are clowns and they are hollow

now. 

the wind has checked their spines 

into atomic halls for waste, wastelings, 

and wastage. your waiting, i can tell 

by your clucks. they come like 

seaweed lapping at my feet. 

you turn sideways from the birds, 

cloaked in your feathers- black 

and bristling, your still turning, 

and the skulls that you pretend 

to feed have grown into men 

who, later, you will pretend to have known.

--apr, 11