I am the one of the swallows.
I am the one. Against windows.
Increase. Onward. Faults throughout.
Coastal California. Who cuts the air.
Of crumbled Eden. Who lives here.
As elsewhere, with no one to care.
For. For those who have never.
Climbed the spiral staircase. Onward.
In the head and besides. We needed them.
We need them and how, to map routes.
Household sunken through. Stretchmarks.
The map, all points of circumspection.
I am the one sacramental. No speak.
Of lighting. I am the ghostman’s float.
I am at sea and uttering. Soundtracks.
Pass through me. And where else is monster.
To hunger. And where else is monster.
Dripping from gutter. Pathologies compounded.
Difficult to swallow. Ejaculate ink, these.
Things you should know. I am the requiem.
Of water. Spitting out sound.

__

You Sliced Your Thumb on a Broken Bottle at Café Medici on Congress-m4w 28 (Medici on Congress)

I came in the other day with my friend. She is blonde and short and I am neither of those things. I had a felt elephant on my chest.

I noticed that you had an enormous wad of gauze wrapped around your thumb, and you told me you’d cut it on a busted bottle. You demonstrated with your hands the motion you use to open such bottles, which apparently isn’t good for keeping them intact. The blood was starting to soak through your bandage and I thought that was really cute.

I asked you why you hadn’t gone to the hospital and you said you fear sterile environments. I fear sterility too. I offered to clean your wound for you because I used to be a boy scout and while I missed out on a lot of merit badges I’m pretty sure I got the one for first-aid. I can clean a wound is what I am saying. But you told me you thought you were fine, and though I could see that you weren’t fine I smiled anyway and you asked me what I wanted to drink. I wanted to drink the Susquehanna River.

What I didn’t want to tell you was that I was moving back to Iowa the next morning, which I was and did. I wanted instead to tell you that I bet you can two-step real nice and this place needs a jukebox. Iowa is temperamental. There was an enormous thunderstorm last night and I kept waking up to it and looking out my window.