Research: Journals

The Journal

Parenthetical quake

Billie Holiday's face is hushed
above the fireplace

as Emily undresses
all her appendix scars.

Her Latin pronouns
for the second person are conjugated

with a slur. You can articulate
anything here: Free love.

Free dip. Frankly, I find it charming
when the host penetrates

each of us with innocuous
conversation. In the living room,

a cross-dresser fails
to realize he's a hat rack.

In the next room, a note
of pleasure descends

the staircase nude. The melody
poses for a snapshot

with Xina's cinched waist
and fondle-me-bootstraps.

But the flash fails to insinuate
the parenthetical--(the shimmer or the quake).

There are so many loves to people,
it hurts your fingers to think about it.

Right now, kneel down
in the church of the penultimate

and listen for the voice-
over. Or don't. If you wanted

a single answer, you'd plan a sit-down
suicide. --Me? I follow the wounded

into their wounds, where the night
phlox confesses to the moths

that match its petals. Please. It's time
to dry off your martini and come

back inside. You have all night to fall,
fail, fuck--and only the morning left over

to forge an identity. This is your first last chance,
so you better find a lover

with a luminous texture
and an extra paper bag to breathe into.

The story should be enough,
but there's also the three silver buttons

dangling like an ellipsis below the navel.
--All these fucked up people

in one place appeals to you.
The only thing separating you

is time and space
and cotton-polyester blends.

Isn't it grand to think
of everyone's eyes dilating?

All this great subterfuge,
barely even smudged. If we took turns

tending the fire's reverie of ruin,
we might recognize the red evidence.

And Eros, that lightweight, burdened
only with a blush. Is sex really

that interesting? I have my doubts,
my mortgage of sarcasm,

my white blood cells
to count. It all gets harder

to define: Just now in the kitchen,
an ode to the signature worm stalls

at the salt on a woman's wrist.
You overhear, and understand,

someone slurring
to the neighbor's geraniums:

He doesn't take oral sex
seriously enough. You sip

your wine nervously, earnestly.
You nod and become aroused.

You should be more careful.
Your androgyny has a first name

that will last. Lust
has a middle class

worth vandalizing.
The body is a crooked

cross leaning deliberately
into the dark, where the stars

are already outside the lines
testifying against the infinite.