Harkness

the bell marks each coming morning, a death,
the beats, a palming echo, on my breast.

compline

if i were extinguished like a candle
in this dark hall
would you notice?

like wisps we float
out afterwards, but
i am not transcendental

poetic license must be rented
from the animal control association

a license to stand in this circle
to know everyone's name

i float out afterwards

thinking of curls and bitter
comparisons and decide in

the future, transcendental,
or buried in the ground

i will float alone.

Jealousy (poem from an old notebook)

I am the one you love
and you'll tell me in a
heartbeat
the future and the past
are separate entities
together
we
are a separate entity
we are not shaped out of our after
we are not carved from our
before

a convoluted mirror of my own

I am waiting for your words
warm and rich like spoiling honey
to drip down the insides of my bones
and pool in the middle of my stomach

sometimes i wonder what that would be like
to be suffocated from the inside with words, probably
not ideal, maybe painstaking, each

syllable a syrupy drop in the pit of my stomach
that left no ripple. And my words, where would they go?

would they spurt out of my mouth like a fountain?
delineating themselves in the sky, each letter falling
and hitting your upturned face, one by one by one

would you stand shocked? frozen with surprise? as my hs
broke on the bridge of your nose, and all my ssss hooked themselves
like fishhooks on your plump lower lip, my os like rings
encircling your ears. I think maybe you would look beautiful.

or would you open your mouth gaping and swallow my words whole?

would your eyes flicker with a sour flame and like
that game of stacking mangled chairs would my letters
lay confused, janky, and jutting in the pit of your

own body? a convoluted mirror of my own.

the last words written in an old red notebook i find, next to a doodle of a tree stump 'STUMPED' (4.10.15)

I'll be your friend
forever

is that comforting?

to lose you
and then be friendzoned
forever

I cannot tell

ducklings

down by the docks we find a duckling

cason hands it to us in his palms
miss he says do you want this?
it shivers in my fingers

grace and I swim it to the rocks
the four boys on the shore watching
every move, the paddling feathers
amongst the sea waves seem
incongruous, jagged like the current

what do they eat? kyle asks insistently,
as the small bills snap up floating seagrass
bread? aaron ventures

I tell them what I was told—that bread isn’t good for birds
it expands in their stomach, popcorn is better.
aaron laughs and chastises himself,
I guess I’ve been watching too many cartoons.

we name the ducks taylor and alex
names for both girls and boys
(aaron suggests donald and daisy
he insists he can tell the genders
by the tuft of hair on one’s head one is yellow yellow yellow
the other is black—that’s how I know)

when kyle asks which one is bigger?
cason thinks it’s the smaller one—
small things can be older he says wisely
like me, I’m smaller than you and I turned eleven
last year kyle grunts, his eyes on the feathers

as grace and I float the two birds
swim around us in figure eights

miss, can you take them with you?
toes dipped in the water, cason asks again.
the boys’ upturned faces are like
unfurled flowers, vast expanses
present in the small space between ear to ear
endless seas, infinite blue

we have to leave them here, we say
we have to let them learn to live on their own

the boys think within a second. can’t they get eaten?
kyle is worried about them floating away,
justin sits on the edge of the dock eyes wide.
what if they float out there?

for a moment, i look out to the waves and try to imagine
our little ducks above the sharks, above the coral, the boats
that crisscross this bay, their smallness in infinity

they can get eaten anywhere I say, but they’ll learn,
they’ll learn to defend themselves.
the harshness of life is too harsh on this island
for a moment too harsh in this small shallow cove

how will they learn? how will they not get eaten?
aaron presses me, his eyes red from salt
four gazes covering every inch of my skin

i try to think of the best way to explain myself—
do you know how some birds learn to fly? they nod.
They step off a tree branch and they fall,
the learning, it comes in the falling.

aaron nods again, i saw that on TV,
caston says he read it in a book.
the four boys let the ocean whisk between
their toes, grace and I tread water to float,

and in the space between us
the warm bath water that threatens
to gulp us down whole,
taylor and alex keep swimming.

musea #1-3

through the window i see the endless blue
beneath the surface live so many things
beautiful spell names i could tell you them if you'd like
i could whisper your name as you wrapped yourself
around me, as you engulfed me
and everything that was alive inside of you floated
through my ears

--

submerged in the wonder
i know that if i go too deep
i lose my color amidst your depth
it isn't something i'd learn
through experience, i'd remember to
hold my breath, to surface
before long

---

in the morning when i wake up you are a dark dark blue
your face your body your hands your heart your soul
i'll hold my breath and take you all in knowing

that by evening you will be orange
and swallow the sun, whole.

----

should i push them away
or draw them in deep
i don't know what type
of company to keep