Anima

So much harmony of limb
I knew by being   but could not parse it

Then when the finch was pecked down to its clear-as-wax-bones

imprint sang the idiom                                    these little glowing letters

the little grains of sand           within me

quietly    they grew    not by wish                      not by one
mineral              spitting another                         or shards of limestone

twisting between breath and bog:

I have a sandman                        He wore gloves when he grabbed it

*
Many little omnivores       I could make                      I feared   for them

that flesh-fullness   I feared   them actually    though a true woman––

she should not   fear  a thing  she’s created              Blown glass fun park

where through the shards     my beasts on a leash             my breasts

in a hammock     Beasts shed          talons                 industrious always

over the marks.  he runs an iron   and plants the seeds              I clip

my nails––        clip clip clip        he takes me and folds me               into

the grey spell       where kindred    collapses                 My shirt next to

his shirt    in the hanger   brews discontent      I have a sandman

He put my hand    out            into the dark from which birds never return

*
I opened my hand one day                                             Inside was a seed

A woman can make many bodies but not

her own   they make it that walk it    I know a woman who knows this

She is a killer and named after a South American                     orchid

smooth as salt     she reeks of mortality throughout         but at the end

how is she in a phone booth in El Paso     where nobody can find her

how she talks and smokes and kicks the blood            dust into her hair

*
Different kinds of sand make different sorts of flesh

Where the dunes end     so many mirages     consorting

in the desert     When you want for food.    but are given

Cain-spawn   remember:   some women are deft at cards

some beasts eat only grass                           Before the sand

man   there was breath   ponderous cycads   a woman

attracting moths        her 8 ribs            alight in a desert