storm’d

That rain out there sounds like applause. The leaves and traffic, scattered grass and monogrammed concrete are all performing stunningly tonight. An encore suggests the city listeners are appreciative. The ones with the box seats are the poets, the fearless squirrels latching onto plaid-pattered screens, pigeons with slippery wings and breath of barbecue steam. Deep inside that puddle beneath your window, a curl floats like an emaciated tugboat. Engine of railroad lineage. Propeller curves and footnoted presence in books and dream sequences. This does not have to be a tragedy. Nor will there be a prologue or feast of sequels. Each storm is its own language. Also inside that puddle is a limb. Cannot call it arm or third of leg. It is collaged and hungry, sipping on rainwater from imaginary straw made of molecular mosh-pit. There is a table of contents decoupaging the skin. How lovely how odd how wet this all is and then clothes come off because synthetics leave too many imprints and reminders of factories. The earth desires nudity, so it drenches; it floats umbrellas away from wrists and curled fingertips. This should be a performance. This should induce romanticism. We should be triggered by its miasmic reminder of the last time.

atheist puddle dweller or whispered scar collector

If I were to call my body an atheist, would that mean there was nothing left on my skin to question or believe. If I used the metaphor of a thousand cardboard boxes broken down and hushed into plastic bags as my body, would that be enough to visualize. How about a lost hitchhiker jumping on the back of metal and bumps, curled into corner against window trying to invision a way out of itself.

We have begun to name snowstorms and I wonder if we do this to place blame on something that slows down our day, freezes up our bent parts and throws us down. When it melts, ice forms or puddles and now that I have boots made by Canadian prisoners, I stomp in them. There is no fear left when protection is worn.

But what happens when entire body is a puddle and there is no costume or uniform to defend oneself from the splash.

Notice the reflection of Wednesday in that spilt body. Or the aggression of oil swirled in like leaked rage. Notice the blemishes; try to medicate it away or stomp it into something less dimensional.

I have been dwelling inside this construction site called body for over three decades or maybe more than that but what I remember can only fit inside a plastic bag big enough for a meal of rushed bites. Others are pushing for an explanation of how this puddle got like this or why it insists on exchanging shapes (sometimes) or why it used to welcome stranger’s punches and soiled footprints but now but now but now it needs to grant permission.

Or….

Perhaps my body is more like a near-sighted mountain lion: roar of genders and fur, sharp-toothed poetics and agility. Does any of this even matter.

Here is how it ends: set fire to body to see what part you (choose) to save first.

[what remains is what existed all along]