FANTASTICAL AUTOPSIES

Not that what

is is

not actual, these odd
bodies garbed in the accident

of space and one
can’t pay it too much
homage, hernia

throbbing, uncodified

as the moon is silent when you’re not
looking at the beach

We, who may
fight as bravely for slavery
as for safety, the sun

crashing between the train
cars like a drug
firing in the brain, a man

sneezes onto the book

because he can’t
take his hands away

from it, a girl
somnambulantly

drags a cord of hair so
it no longer curtains her
shyly evading

eyes, a soldier
elsewhere steps over
the leaking resemblance of

a torso and a course

is determined to prolong
such images

2

One falls into all
the confusions of an equivocal
language, the body moves

eye disappears
without preparing

We perceive that which

exceeds us, sparrows
congregate on

the clothesline, our arms
grasp each other’s backs and our stomachs
bulge to touch

one another at the point
of their turning

inward

From you I see a desert
which holds everyone

in their inconceivable lateness

Brooklyn here
But myself

Remembering the skeleton
of a two-headed calf
named Spider, the crowd fevered

with visitations, the clouds lured
with infantile pinks, hues

tricking us into volume

3

Holland, 1945, fuzz heavy

as the dead
bulb shivers into a bloom
of eccentric shards

I’m asking you

to accompany me
through the deformations

and into ourselves

I’m asking you

if it is possible
to refuse
to go blind

Outside there is a marathon and marathons
always make me cry, a man

For whom the divers tones
Of a mental life meld

At once

Does infinite movement lead us
to attempt to equal

instantaneity?

Do verbs only betray
the impossibility

of not acting?

4

So much in my life happens

that’s not poetry

these days, the black-eyed
woman who in the middle of her
rant quieted

to whisper god

bless you in the direction
of pinstripes, the drugged-out

glare of the boy
embarrassed by

his grasp of fractions and yet
his laughter is impressive

the kangaroos in the park leaning suspiciously
on their tails, the heart
of a mouse stretched like a ribbon

across the curb as certain
small mysteries continue

to animate the instant

This morning I dreamt I
was purchased
by a large, wealthy Italian

family to “fix”

their youngest daughter
who spoke only
in tongues and woke

to the hydraulics

of the 75 bus picking
up strangers outside the movie theatre

There is nothing arbitrary about this

5

Chinese men stand

on my foot on

the way to Manhattan, the hair
from my armpits pinching

in my t-shirt, to be blind

each day is a senseless response

Is there responsibility without
judgment, without

prohibition?