ant5

 

X’s on the calendar

we mark them for

different reasons

 

at first

it seems Venus

is moving

 

after the melt

the trees

still bent

 

years later

the same problem

with a comma

 

an insect

upsets the operation

of nature

 

it turns out

it was you

who did it

 

explore your soul

the thing above my

toilet says

 

 

 

 

her hand covered in orange pulp she slips into her accent

 

full moon hanging from a line between buildings a white shirt

 

it’s been ten years we start calling each other by name

 

cold spring rain snail in its beak the crow blinks

 

wan light of the bathroom a spider lowers to the blue tile

 

sun shifts to the rest of the house a petal blowing across the rug

 

the curve in the metal peaks a taut black cord its slight motion

 

waiting for the timer to go off I let the moth walk on my arm

 

the green chair has lost its cushion tracked in tiny wet leaves

 

dawn light of spring a ticking from the grasses

 

the lights go out here in the room all along the full moon

 

through a gap in the seat of the bench the last weed

 

she changes her bathing suit again the flies start biting

 

a spot on the table without varnish quietly the heave of trees

 

washed over the lip of the bowl an ant holding a yellow fleck

 

her hand turns purple in the rain an empty bus passes

 

steam drifting from a manhole a crow picks at ragged plastic

 

dandelions among the stones that wasn’t one machine it was two

 

covered in graffiti the train cars pass quickly through town

 

it keeps peeling itself off into a moth the bare bulb in the night

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

amygdala the nervous little shit

 

the dead animals all around me

 

a symphony of recorded hang-ups

 

the frog is a leak in the kitchen

 

nothing blooms precisely

 

it’s almost a French word

 

glimpse of a tuft of hair

 

the refrigerator turns off we hear traffic