Aught, no. 8 (2002)


Amy King

Alleged Immortality

We prey ourselves into
the jail abyss of one room industrial frequented:
we're giving familiarity away.
Ignore the opaque atmosphere;
the untouched muscles in my face
wrinkle in redundancy of the view
of outward sight, a trademark stunted
seeking railway logic and the steps forth granted

You are now offered permission
to lick my account, move ahead two.
No portrait of depth sunk in
where the bones now stew, the reflection surmounts
a midnight god, one for every tomb.
She also feared safety
without knowing her own
for which your comprehensive behavior speaks
a landmine on every road, months apart and ahead

Not the glass vanishing point, lost appetite
repeals the minimal decay in stitches.
I enter behind your eyes
with soft teeth, thin fingers parting skin.
My parables say less but each embrace
in edges markets masked intent—
I want to consume none of you:
taste yourself and come to.

 

Quantum Jump

Insert your tears in close proximity
of the feast for days, seconds even
for passing agents and bodies
on whatever the escalator or hyphenated position
selects. We've won awards for less,
chosen the dog or choose god;
it's your inevitable distinctions that steep
among the rest. Next I feel your pulse on my
inner thigh and a sky resists rising night
before we take the final shuttle home,
remarking on the next unaccountability
of our single bred social delusions,
now reprinted in dissolving ink.

 

Open Invitation

 

She digs for material shoots dissolving from the stems:
after demolition, the tower of thirty day lights,
a winter sea feast of blue water foam,
a waitress has mistaken my pen for belonging
to the next city-seeking fool. This café throngs
with artists by night who push computers and lights
in days for more than the average fax. My dog
remembers Henry, wag, and the girl leans well
against me within. I know the world on its miniature pedestal
spreads out again, certain my invisible tentacles
as rays embrace what cannot be seen: as much as everything
is determined by god's guest and what she finally makes

 


Copyright © 2002, by the author. All rights reserved.
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