2. veronicae

new monster

thick white metal

in which i coat myself

thickly: zinc a nail deep.

as if

sheltering

within poison--

my lips a snakebit red,

their juices surging

just under skin,

for you, my spice,

dried in hot memory:

equatorial baking

of your face, your voice--

i slam husks of you against a stone floor,

hoping for shock, to force a chill,

but all that breaks is

my voice--

and it speaks your name,

lips wet

with juice.

veronica. veronica. veronica. veronica. veronica.

raucous freshness

digging toward center,

the seed i

swallowed: your image.

every goddamn root

splits through my red and black--

veins, arteries, corpuscles,

the machine of the earth allegorized in flesh,

the raw root-network of pulses

that unfurls, monstrous, of its own accord,

my body, become your ground.

eyes beating blind, vision ribboned with the

impulse

of your juice:

this

very heart

is yours.

dearest

self-furrowing, these sloughs i dig

through skin.

i vision myself as dirt,

ploughed, the motion of heat in air.

the hot taste of essence-laden breath

hhhhh from upturned earth,

the grinding of the plough.

bah! you were never all i wanted,

veronica.

to turn you inside out,

magma spilt and roiling, blazing surface like a sun

hot on the tongue, eyes stretching,

each eyelash suddenly irradiate,

cheeks scored with fire

under the pressure

of that hot vision--

white to black like the plough of a scream through a throat

and vision a blank and sacramental taste:

veronica, i make myself your earth.

(lover, i hold out my hands and

nothing comes into them.

lover, i hold out my hands and

nothing

comes into them.)

roses

the only thing i remember from a rather insincere study of william carlos williams:

the rose that

drops eternity off

the edge

of each petal--

dripping, eternity comes, sliding thick

from the mouth of the rose and all down its stem.

i push the rose into my mouth

to taste eternity, crystalline like sugar, salt--

it's something to savor,

the absence of

decay, the absence of

the moment,

subsumed

in a lush satin swirl of petals.

my mind, too, can be dirty for you;

watch me contort:

i can douse the rose

deepen its color with moisture,

make its new scent

that of a profound and secret blush.

see how i can make myself

your own, see how i set my lips

into the cavern of your doubled hands--see

how i set up an echo

like the stain the rose traces

on a piece of cloth:

see how i repeat.

resonance

stretch of hand:

the winter-sallow skin,

dry-run, its minimal geometry

broken in light--

the spreading muscles

spinning thin.

over and over--

its involuntary dance

under-familiar.

i plumb myself but find

only freshness.

endless freshness, raw as unspun silk.

the rhythms i knew

gone

the breath that flies my taut chest

broken

like a line of teeth.

what happened to

the things i knew?

scrabble

like mouth on rock,

like seed on the bone-dry plain

to press my face

to the memory of you, but

as everything, shadeless in this newness,

you peel away.

ich grolle nicht

veronica, my star, my sun,

veronica, my root, my heart, my white, my black, my red,

my gravity, my time and space,

my cat, my dog,

my and and the,

my it, my h, my r,

my, my.

(veronica, i was wrong. i was wrong.

but spare me. spare me.

veronica, don't leave me. don't leave me.

think how much i say i love you.

think how much

i love you.)

veronica

drop,

words

down

after

her

as she

sinks

away.

i have not

yet

heard

one word

hit

the

lowest

depth.

zinc metaphor

i like to think

myself

present

and i confess

that this is why

i address myself

to you

veronica.

(deep in the caverns

of my heart

there is a coin.

it has two faces

unchanging

and the metal

in the center

writhes

between them,

turned liquid

under pressure.)

i wept in a dream

beauty is pressure.

this is why, said the greeks,

we drew

figures

from marble.

this is why, said the singers,

we drew

notes

from flesh.

fashioning

petals

from parts;

the attempt

to compress

petals

into flesh.

this is why, like water from a well,

i drew your name

from memory.

milton

a rhythmic knocking

at the smoke-blue tower

of this dream.

i was curled

tighter than a fist,

pressed

closer than a seed,

immured

behind walls

thicker than flexed muscle.

when i breathed

the dream breathed with me.

the hilt of the dream

against my side,

the blade of the dream

deep within.

the tower was small

and blood trailed,

easy as tears,

down its stairs

like a face.

the knocking is

like an invocation.

the knocking is

like an invocation.

quietus

apocryphal intervention of the phoenix:

black hair, blue smoke

curling up from your cigarette.

i don't remember what you said,

but it comes back to me,

the porch light and the porch railing

and the knowledge,

forceless yet infinite, rising, catching fire,

that it was done...

that that which i never had had

was gone.

then i was

excoriate.

now i look at

the wound

and wonder

whether to let it heal.

like words scored

into a tree's bark--an easy if inept metaphor--

your mark,

branded to my tongue:

veronica. veronica. veronica.

meditations of the beast

i was looking into a window

at my own reflection

and suddenly

the smell of wax,

melting things,

and i saw your image

standing behind me,

Veronica.

The window cracked,

shattering

down to its lintel, reflected light

littering the ground,

and

i turned

and

saw you.