June 26 - 29

June 26

Beneath the Hand-shaped Oak

The last time I lounged beneath
was with summer in you
and my hands were brimmed
– june bugs, honey sandwiches, desire.

Now in aches of spring, again
the tree’s blossoming perfumed leaves,
but no June, no honey,
only desire.
Hands emptied, save
cloudy sunshine gaping through
such splinter fingers.

I want those june bugs back
– hopefully I can resurrect enough
of their iridescent bodies 
to forget they stink when smashed.

June 27

carbon-rod dating

I set fire to this house myself
and lay on the floor with you.
Your sunset-cloud eyes tendered me,
the smoke roiling over the ceiling.

Electricity warps with possibility.
Fire already combusts.

Our hands fell close, but sparks
sang better the less we touched,
the more we flinched against that fire
callusing out of every sooty bond of us.

Water births life.
Fire breeds it.

I stole the attic bird nests to weave
my kindling lips, painted them
with rosemaling rocking chair cinders,
pressing them, finally, to your lavender-stalk neck.

A nucleus fissions radiation.
A fire always radiated.

When the roof avalanched around us,
embers and charcoal and crisps,
a single electron of mine jumped
across the crush of bones to you.

June 28

cuteness aggression

Foxgloves accordionfold out 
the hole in my chest
to the wound in yours.
I didn’t mean to let my yellowing hands
scrounge too wide, I wanted
to lounge like the sinners in limbo
with jasmine blossoms overflowing,
on your bruised face, cresting over
crusted cuts in the twinkling symmetry
ionic – iconic in its looming sun-
flickered in freckles and motes,
sloughing broken skin, and unhealing
lines in your face. I left them there –
that you asked me to leave
in a voice begging to leave
red welts, hand-shaped, 
hand slapped, shovel-dug-
slam into your body
again with a meaning I can decrypt
when I bury you in bitter thyme and roiling worms
I pray you groan and rip my skin,
feel coughed nails, lungs splintering in
each bark telling me
that I’m wanted.
Someday we’ll sit, watch the seagulls
dawn over the ocean, and fight over the crabs,
who couldn’t scuttle sideways fast enough
to avoid the sharp beaked love.