Mara Vahratian
Shortfingers Hip-Switch
(well I was born in the country so he thinks I’m easy to lose)
Crammed mailbox with oleander
(no evil intent) and scrawl
—O my daily thought, my nightly scheme
Absconder, the dishes done and all
double-negatives from your tongue
seem love of space.
And me, a bending to
—to make less of.
You wash your clothes, I've got no
common sense. A calendar-count
after the first time a reddish said wasn't—
and we were quiet a while.
Say summer. You inside but
eye stooping to flood, or porch
a port in storm. The town was
mudded, buried enough to
(baby, you oughta)
In the Yard, Purslane
(for autoharp, neglected his pale wildwood)
We could eat some. Lemon,
rock salt, it's done for
a sitting and locus proper:
patio. Surely I won't
call you Ezra and twine with
or did so, greens in mouth, lifting
dressbelt. Set feet. My-my.
Here, a wronged list
to pick and grin and you're him
who's down to defend the gatepost,
hipslung, say, sword of fire.
A byway of shuffled gums
the proof I'm up the primrose
walk, vetch under a pillow.
Trick Candle
(in which their third attempt at)
My hands full of capsicum and what a year's changes.
Steady the bedslats for a sleepwalker, no steady
footwork on Cartographer shaking
all his curls to constellate.
O turntable. O vernal equinox. All seen
needs washed—we can't lose more teeth
these days, jaws in pockets.
Some canopy and too lit and would
I ever have a darker town
(count houses or palo verdes, count pause)
A heated space as how well, a bare-
armed rounding up to shoulders.