Girl (Two)

a lack of shared

amniotic fluid

necessitates some distance

eyes that are blue

(soon green)

reflect off water and glass

and sometimes

scales moving in the sphere

they tell us

proximity is love

Girl (Zero)

round fish with radiant spikes

says "poke here"

something must pop like the sound

of lips on clavicle

you can't eat something

with such a cute face

and you can't love something transient because

it will be mistranslated

but you still

have to push.

Katabasis

i am studying

the transmission of self

this is only a test

please expect over--

compensation for cooperation

every transition

from day to night

conscious to dreaming

is--

(static)

Aquatic Elegy

you're my favorite imaginary friend.

the only one to escape

the child sewn to ceiling

porcelain limbed hollow

flight from your voice to my memories

so I told you (the one with the right words):

if I stretch your skin to a parachute

all the pieces will still shatter

when you exit orbit

and watching makes me burn

the sheets canopy draped

to escape the sun



but during the day,

when I leave,

I wish I could carry fire in my hands

and bring it to my mouth like candy when

I'm hungry

because it's always freezing and...

nothing you say makes it better.

I'm still going home, fingers and knees on splinters, and waiting for someone new to copy the keys.

because you're still gone, and I'm too small for the imprint of the body in my bed.

tracing the margins to fill with more stories of why

we can't meet for drinks sometime between twilight and dawn,

and why

I'm (sorry) a liar



Twilight:

you're taking pictures

(other girls)

while I'm hiding beneath

a bed.

the flash cast shadow

covers my hands

and for a second

the circuit completes

I can almost follow the impulse to where you're standing

where she's looking

and over-expose the frame

(your bones hold a network of tunnels,

and I'm creeping in and out 'til lost
in skeletal structure and nervous lines)

dawn:

you have the child,

I keep the girls,

and the shift

axis-shudder keeps us asleep

You are buried
beloved/alive

while I say stupid things

"Why am I so obsessed with--"

when I broke my rib

and I couldn't stand to hug you

be hugged

and every thought linked back to

exposing bones.

I want to be stripped

rather than drained

because there's nothing uglier than mummification.

Agreed?

Agree.

(Remove the essential "me" and--)

"I can't be comfortable in your bed anymore"

and ?

The sentence never seems complete

yesterday i fainted while walking home from the bus

the thread from my wrist into space

to you

siphoning circulation into a single red point

until i fell

tunnel-vision face

first into cement before children and cars

and you weren't there

and the other threads snapped

and i can't remember where to find the ends

does it make you sad?

when you can't catch the eight year old girl

you think you should have known

(small)

red thread stitches

a patch in the lining of every letter

we don't

have to have everything in common

though the title says twins

genetic

or imagined

and i promised