from the deepest place inside
the one humans call love
i brought
five fingers slick and black with blood
a piece of flesh the size of a rock
the kind of rock – perfect- which fills a hand
i put it on the table
and with my own fingers
tore at it
sinew, white veins, muscle
all rubber, bounce and sliding disobedience
i used my teeth ripping out the leather tubes
the clots of brown the pockets
i took a knife to the interior
and pinned it with a fork
looking for the thing inside
the key the coin
the answer
the glint of metal
the Ah I see it now
the thing inside which aches
so I could fling it from the highest roof
into the deepest sea
watch it sink and lose it
walk away light and laughing
the breeze colluding with the scarf across my hair
all my summers ahead of me
i used my teeth to tear the whole thing open
probably i don’t need to tell you
there was nothing there
just gristle smashed to brown
the table smeared with blood
and nothing other
i threw it on the floor for a dog
the thing still ached

she was a sunflower
her pretty face followed the sun
when the sun went down
she didn’t know who she was
she wept.
he was a shepherd
his mind caught in other things
she things me things one day things
when he lost his flock
he wept.
i came from and next
and The Way to me was dark
i took darshan from a great saint
and even though my forehead
pressed bone into bone
on the sunbaked floor
i had forgotten how to be humble
i wept.

i received darshan from a great saint
and all the time it was happening
tears came down my face
and the fragrance of her purity lifted the air
she pinned me with the blade of her stare
and i pressed my head into the red carpet at her pale feet
and all the time it was happening
my mind said: cigarette
and: this poem
the rest of me though
over on the other side of the abacus
the side to which, across the kalpas, i’ve been adding beads
that part,
it trembled to be impaled like that
it wept

couldn’t find anywhere to be long
so stayed short
making pigs’ ears and sows’ purses
shrugging off people and occasions
with my hands i made shapes:
dog, days, house, truth, love.
one day i made something called This Human Life
stuck it on the sill between the wedding present and the wooden horse an uncle couldn’t take
washed my hands and went outside
the world sang

making just a small incision
each day
in the sky
with a scalpel
they say
pays dividends
though how much
and when
if ever
they also say
is none of my damned

today you look tired
i like it when you’re like that soft
and i can find my way in