she can't stop shaking and I can't stop touching her
It doesn't come quiet, like flowers
or loud, like rivers.
Over my hands it pours, clear like water
or straw yellow, suspended in test tubes
or other medical enclosures
with biohazard symbols.
I should have one of those spiky signs
with spindles curved like blades
etched onto the bottom of my soul.
in red, a warning.
poison. danger.
prone to change without warning
prone to infect, prone to presume
it doesn't come loud like flames
or soft like rot
it's something else entirely.
I dreamt I was walking along a fence. It was in Iowa, late summer, the air was warm and wet and heavy and it smelled like manure and fermenting corn stalks. I was walking along a fence and I came upon them unexpectedly, walking in a line to the left side of the fence. The faces. The hands, holding each other. They were going to the top of the hill.Beautiful they were, growing more beautiful as I drew nearer. Two children in angel costumes. A mourner, casting crystal tears from her hands. The winged woman. The stark singer. All of them, walking to the top of the hill.
They stopped to talk with each other. I perched on the fence and watched them.
The day melted into night, the stars spun above, and finally—
—stretched upwards with open arms—
— you are the things you swallow.
no, they say, shaking
their heads.
not at all.
it comes chilled like winter
and as clear as daylight—
it remakes my world, shivers,
and moves on.
dangerous hand, stay.
—12/17/99