Now the night glasses unfurl their
scripts how many days was the wa-
unraveling certain words you trek thru wood rockets—I smell nighttrees you smell burning—how
not to—his name passed from dream to tablet. his name on a list. tacked and parsed. arrested.
SENSATION we will build a WALL—how not to—the paper is sinuous soft shocked and
welcoming. the missile repeats itself. you are contained in foliage. cold water composes enuf to
carry me. sheaves. white while falling. itself in a flurry. horrific pictured (paper in mouth—how
not to) SPEILS brushed up against pulpy our SUBLIME atrocity this leafy press is perfume scrap
metal say you draw a line from here to here look closer smoke and birds. their legs letters searing sand.
I
don’t mean to startle you like this. “This is not a closed
investigation”
unraveling certain worlds while we can. careful where you fling your words or bills they’re
coming for you
STILLS cold water for your
mosquito bites, long live the stains of
summer figs come down in a flurry
summer figs come down in a flurry
go inside with paper straws
nudging breath toward color
recuperations
to de-pigmetize my brother’s jail suit for my mother forever stung by blinking
images
ushering in a new kind of orange, not orange alert or the one-piece kind his limbs moving inside/outside, chewing on his name
offer instead: a flickering warmth
sing a long (misremembered)
your life has become rather sensational
you went to a sensational high school
this is a state-funded sensation
: how many hits, swollen face or
stomach, sweeping ginger tea bags
I smell nighttrees, you smell burning
summer of skin inflammations
worry that your words might bring hives to the arms of your friends
worry that you are spilling too much worry into non-worry zones
worry that you will be considered an enemy combatant
worry that you will become a ROBOT on metal springs, battery powered while your
body is detained
‘twas a twilight zone experience
depopulated
in the colony names filled sheets
I can tell you mine because it means nothing
heavy boots the sound of running
bullet-ridden clothing passed between hands
“bring the body”
SOME ENVISION A WALL OTHERS A FENCE -- OR EVEN A 'VIRTUAL' FENCE OF CAMERAS LIGHTING AND SENSORS
in the morning when I smell burning do you
smell trees/ how close (this block is self-contained)
can you put your face to the oven
before his eyebrows singe?
they’re just—they’ve been
PERMIT THE INDEFINITE, EXTRAJUDICIAL INCARCERATION OF TERRORIST SUSPECTS AND THEIR INTERROGATION USING TOR-
A CATEFORY OF DETAINEES WILL COME INTO EXISTENCE "UNLAWFUL ENEMY COMBA-
THOSE DETAINED WILL NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHAL-
because woods brushed shoulders
last night for an instant a new coat SECRET AND COERCED and shoes meaning
pasta all week TO DETAIN INDEFIN how are your plants? lexicons yearning How Is It To Be Caught? rose geranium nutmeg why spread poison
birds pecking glass
night drunken on red legs flew from yard to yard finally
knees resting near the football field (so close to home!)
your spine unreceptive to stretches
corridors leading to the detainees too vivid for your imagining
the lungs are wide-reaching, blowing holes in fences
honey cake spiked with rose water
lifted out of the oven in some distant city
carried over to you a tinge of
camaraderie among monks or laypeople
she struggled to correct the young boy’s grammar since
the mishaps of the sentence carried a whiff of delicacy
the drifty
headache
as she writes this
keeps her closer
somehow
indefinite fields open room to land
while those detained figures metal and doors
spin stories thickening files
compelling life returns “to normal”
for whom?
jailed boy’s mother fainted on TV
news filled with “execution style”
U-Haul offers bright furniture dollies
index finger (staticy) rushing down lists
which team are you on.
exercise in empathy: trade
the birds don’t distinguish could offer massive transport wing to balcony taste of your cigarette
fishermen play cards all day while waters toss and turn in oil
their fish still looked fishy, knee deep in slouchy spines
“can’t talk right now, gotta pick up the kids from school”(Mediterranean Sea, quoted in
Mini-series:
the story was set to repeat: follow the money
her shoes were out of season and left a trail the coat was
camouflage false press leads fake letters stolen identities
we’re accustomed to inexactitude and shallow debris
in the pool a fence is a gesture we expect traffic and labor
follow the money ABOUT $33.8 BILLION IN FUNDING TO HELP SECURE
THE HOMELAND smile at the camera like falling in love
meanwhile at the WHITE HOUSE H.R. 6166, meet Award-winning puppeteer -- who
recently wrote My Life as a Furry Red Monster and S.B 3930 a forensic anthropologist who
pens mystery novels that have won awards. . . STOP
take this pill and say: our lives are in danger
it’s july so why not go swimming nature’s foreign and i’ve lost my composure
I hike to the fort. It’s empty. This my______. Stronger after dying. We drink tea. Heating up. Diving. Driving. Eying flocks. Bring Cash. ROAM the nightstreets residual hauntings. Heavy boots. Hot toddies.
his face looking back from the glass. pick a card. any card. any card will do.
tall vessel of steamed milk calm on the one hand time zone calculation:
my family will break fast in thee hours their phone voices a rough silk
of just awakened, wonder about the corners of their lips
have you heard about the new congress bill
afraid of normalcy M. still dishes out the same advice
meanwhile
at the white house
Rerun:
Dial tone. The secretaries voices are receptive and there are no lady cops.
The TV boxes are big and have knobs not buttons. The men are skinny.
The women buxom. We believe in the press and the president. Eventually they loose their
jobs. Defamation begins. Capers: once they get away its all downhill
We’re coddling terrorists. Pull up beside me on the couch massage the hard bits.
speedy readers order execu- begins regimen of blackberry essence
for “matching the will”
Roam the nightsheets
fertile liquids asking to be disposed of good health just an idea
fingertips sprinkling meditation cushion upon hearing
the words terror boy she could not dispose of the image of her brother’s body blinking in cyber
likes to IM her friends to say, “you okay”
unfair to be angry at boots
protecting feet leaps taken in “good faith” g. taking E.M.T. test today so she can help with situations abroad
cultivate majesty’s flower
not precious negative space
let purple direct
Sometimes the fancy
words don't provide the kind of
sweet spot the kind you take home and open your window to
humming birds while his face soars and you think I can’t say this stuff
and you keep going because you remember how that color tasted on your tongue
folded in the linen envelope joy when she confessed
and groaned in public banging the side of the podium
the many ways to write this as many as the leaders many heads infiltrating
the water supply the grains of charcoal in the filter the water runs through remember
we cupped hands and drunk the river of melted snow?
w
e‘re wading though dense fog because they
got their fog juice and screamer fog machine and let loose a thick cloud
w
atch out! we call ahead someone’s knocking into brick
partially intoxicated the voice-over says
go ahead fall in love and someone
wants to know if it’s medicine or poison ‘cas what’s the difference my
sleeve’s covered and we’re stumbling on the curb
gathering moisture in our hair we’ve
been here at the lake wrapped in histories before
ROAMING the nightstreets they were my boots
typical horror motif: gaze into blur
what’s being kept /out/’s already in
waiting’s potential the event’s logic
“things will move accordingly”
a ladder
a rope
a vine
defocalized
i come to the locked gates of the city and pass through them no one
sees me do this. it’s
not a theoretical question though I’m thirsty all the time. my back is not abstract. i have feet. the
wound speaks to the serpent. the serpent speaks to the wound. i am given a present. i am given.
choose: a spoon or a straw. i select a bowl which is my body and empties. a bowl made of earth is
out-of-place on asphalt. dipped in water turns to clay and cinder. dipped in water speaks. dipped
in water bleeds. we are playing hopscotch tossing bracelets over squares of colored chalk. falcons
chatter overhead. they say: a body can assume any form.
not a theoretical question though I’m thirsty all the time. my back is not abstract. i have feet. the
wound speaks to the serpent. the serpent speaks to the wound. i am given a present. i am given.
choose: a spoon or a straw. i select a bowl which is my body and empties. a bowl made of earth is
out-of-place on asphalt. dipped in water turns to clay and cinder. dipped in water speaks. dipped
in water bleeds. we are playing hopscotch tossing bracelets over squares of colored chalk. falcons
chatter overhead. they say: a body can assume any form.
have you heard their speeches i could have
done a better job
what’s being kept out are your giant paws waving us in
toward a floating dock sturdy but slippery chalky pastels not your
childhood sidewalk but i love the way you prepare your tea, syrupy
love so hard you’ll burst open a window store for those passing by smile through arms bangled
wrists or businessmen
love your pottery earthenware versus
! urgency the plot suggests
already our heels need sharpening
i come to the shell of the back a wishy washy fragrance running
over you lean into me to adjust my back my face in your hair trusting the opening of the
diaphragm or else something backstage
new rugs or “did the man with fez come in”
no, but the birds did, the ones we discriminate against the street kind
or bold
salesperson
wanting to gift you a dress sequined with
returning, reviewing the summer’s
events seek to recall let’s not go there city meets you
halfway loving you harder palming the small of
already the pomegranates
their seeds sprinkled among flowers, a japanese
arrangement
elise ficarra lives and works in San
Francisco,
where she is the business manager of the Poetry Center at
San Francisco State University. Her book, Swelter, came out in 2005
from Fourteen
Hills Press. She is an affiliate artist at the Headlands Center for the
Arts, where she keeps
watch on the defunct Nike Missile site.
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