THE CURVE
Something, call it X, wanted a body
so it made our bodies.
But our bodies weren’t right for it—
gum around the bones,
a rash of gold or black,
eyes like blisters
leaking fondness.
*
X realized all animal bodies were like this, so it made language.
*
Language forced X into the body
like carbonation into a soda.
When I hear the word rock,
a translucent lump
shimmers in front of the world.
To its right, a piece of glass cuts a clear finger
and to its left, there pulses a rocky, low, cold crust.
*
Though the images
vary exhaustingly and troublingly,
I always remember
the spoke of earth
cutting into the ocean
we saw from above, on a bicycle ride,
the sheen of the bicycles
spreading over the earth,
distinct from the ocean’s sheen.
The sheens alarmingly similar to one another
to be so close together—like two bodies making love.
*
We imagine a vertical meadow
complicated into our world needlessly;
but complication is all X ever wanted for us.
We misunderstand purity. This is purity.
*
I am your lover and X’s.
I am too good a lover
to ever be bored:
Skinny, hairy-chested,
made of pellets of rice,
cheeping in a way that’s
endearing and inappropriate,
confused, surprised at the confusion,
surprised at the surprise,
and so on, very tiringly, so on.
