T H E S E S W A L L O W E D P R A Y E R S A S C R E A T I O N M Y T H
– wáaqo’ ’óykalana titóoqana hinéesmux̣sin ’ilcwéew’cixnim.
& yet for ages we’ve been holding on
to this silence as any child born I learn to move
these forsaken hands along the damp walls of this god-
less body as if I too am your animal the only torch
this monstrous heartbeat rippling everywhere & no-
where I reach towards a blurred opening to the other
room meaning a life-sized rupture left vibrating
like decades around a skeleton listen—the xím xím
xím of the animals twists into your body was made
to always hold you in place & this you has come so far
so why not disappear just this once the ink
drowning the eyes the bloodstream carrying the body
on & into the white noise of translation & soon
this you tears open the brief sáw between its own ribcage
under a newer light a fresh fracture like softened ear
bones ringing after another heavy rain of holy
gunfire have I gone too far? I pray for I might enter back
to when we were all once singing láw láw láw before
the jaws of ’ilcwéew’cix devoured us as though a city
now vanished we who built its bright-white cathedrals
of bone & hear the dark—unlike any other whispers
of our faceless gods buried into the flesh every exit
a fire escape the flexed diaphragm a pupil’s black-
lit aperture capturing the muzzled breath of our beloved
dead & yet through the dead—here, your body inside
the body—is the only way out isn’t it? you desperate
desperate animals run until you enter the earth alive
you are trust me.
Y O U R S T I L L – L I F E I S N O L O N G E R S T I L L
Your hands bright red as the skin / of the red delicious
we shredded / to taste what’s closest / to the core / this
isn’t the blood / of our newest ghosts / the snow
touching the skin / of only the living / will become
beads / of breakable sky / shiver, my dear— / for we are
soon to be so / gone / this same land is smearing / into
America / my hair smelling / of river water—is this
an omen? a telling? a foreshadow? now tell me / we’ll make it
to the end / of our unanswerable lives / tell me how / the cities
will make our bodies / beautiful enough to forever / be locked
behind a glass cage / with our broken names / show my tongue
the only way / to dance until the whorl / of dark silk below
your belly- / button is as slick as the pink / of our animal
tongues / give me / the directions to a place / bursting with
mosquitoes—full of / welts & terrors you’ll always know / we’ll know
the coming / of someone’s jesus let’s call hunger / dear,
it’s the end / of winter so / sleep next to me until / the black
under our eyelids / is no longer the thinnest slip of skin
but the mid- / night of a country growing / before us
tell me this / will never ruin us / god, tell me / please.
T H E T H I R D M E A S U R E P A U S E D & S E T T O Y O U R B R E A T H I N G
How might it feel to be a vessel
of light? Like a moon held in the throat
of the sky—a cold pressing the lips
enough to shatter the tongue
of any open mouth. Somewhere
at the distance of centuries
your body could penetrate the skin
of my eyelid like this
until the ceiling of the house
burned away. Leaving me
& you on the bedspread—side-
by-side—our bones never once touching
lost in orbit around tonight. I swallow
what remains of the failing air
like a casket dissolving
over a god’s awful taste
buds. So how might it feel, Lord—
to live only behind
the teeth. Death pointing inward.
The spine reaching
in both directions. The stars
unraveling from inside
the head. How might it feel
to be so vanished
that any movement is
but a brief torch lighting
your scented ankles now
gone—a smear of
fire ignited in some-
body’s lost history. Lord
press your fingertips
into me. Let me treasure
your touch enough to cave
my ribs in. To crush me
so gentle now that I am made
to be the very last light
gravity remembers.
