Vertebrae

after Ada Limón


More of you. The choice between water and mud
and mud turning into water anyway. Things wash themselves
is what the clouds kept saying. The stream shallows
then breaks open with new wash months later then goes again
into startled coda. Like sleep. Found another stone
and it was not filled with secrets. All it wanted to say is
that it’s been here a long time. And that when it was larger
an even longer time then. I did not hold it it was too heavy
to even touch. In the corner of this a child throws it across
the stream and there starts something else entirely known.
When you said to me that there’s something in my teeth.
You called it a smile. I sound it out again and again.

Good Long Poem

was something I always wanted. Because something was never working inside of me.
Because something is never working inside of me. I’m working now, Sabrina, at the writing
like the way that you might be working, but not as well, not as frequent, not with the casual
viciousness of your words. was something I always want. Because of my attraction to plants,
I’d like to be buried in soil, be buried soft, be buried deep (I want to take a nap again, I always
want to take a nap again), with only the minimal awareness of things such that the sun is
something I might turn to, slowly. I’m a little bit vampiric. I’m into mouths. I’m into necks.
I’m into singing things. I’m heavy with all sorts of muddled horns. Long, hollow, cold.
Spittles flying all warm and solid. I’m aching with it. Please let me ache with the warmth.
Please ache with the warmth with me. was something I will always want. Please let me want
it with warmth. Every day’s feeling like a shipwreck. I’m moored to the land in a hopeless way
with kind unnecessary energy, a shallow well. My mind’s a shallow well. Bad echoes
of other mouths. Also muddled horns. All the muddled horns. With one girl: a flute. I miss
her. I’m listening to the air now and there isn’t history in it. I’m a builder of large things
like wind. was something I want. I’m building a new version of history that involves us
with the wind. I was walking and nearly got carried away. Air can be thick. I’m wading
now in the gas. Lungs are thick. All the cognition is being the chest rising, then falling.
All the cognition is something I want, always. Even the plants, mouthless, are opening
something like lips to their thinking. Turning now to the sun. There’s snow. Turning
still to the sun. I’m working now not like the way you might be working. Because something
will never be working inside of me. Placing it here with warmth, with need. Then brass.