Slinky
Bright spring of silver
I push my hand through.
Cast of metal-
bracelet,
gauntlet,
glove.
Pull it off
of itself--
each ring coming away
from the next,
separating out
from the whole.
Slow skein of alive tension that cuts the sky
into segments of blue.
I lie on my back looking up
through the broken world.
Slinky, like a chest expanding , a breath pulled in,
and then let go.
All of it collapsing into itself with a sudden
ching!
Or a slower shush--
if you let it go on a carpet,
one end snaking toward the other one,
coils kissing coils,
coming home.
Put it on a step
and watch it find its way,
end over end,
in a slow balletic tumble.
And when it stumbles,
the frantic rolling, springing, crash
as it rushes down the stairs.
That could be you.
And the smell of it
like pennies on your skin.
The smell of it, like the taste of blood in your mouth--
The metal of your body,
and the ridges there on the edge of things
where you could cut your tongue.
Spirograph
with it's teeth, teeth, teeth
and its tight little circle of holes.
The way your eyes go all hazy,
sleepy like a dream,
waiting for the whole of it
to come round again.
A mandala of green.
Or blue.
Or red.
Or black.
And then another smaller disk, after,
to make another smaller world
inside the other.
Snowflakes of ink,
like the symbol of the atom, spinning.
Or a flower.
Sometimes, though, the pen-tip was too short.
Or the ink ran out.
Or the teeth came out of the other ones
and it was ruined--
the pen off track--
marking the place where you forgot
to push into the paper, forgot
to push back into the world, forgot
you were part
of making the magic
of it happen,
after all.
Etch-A-sketch
Lines that show the places
where I trace and peel the silver back
from the world's eye.
The mirror of this
negating
what I will not see,
replacing what is there
with what I imagine it
to be.
Two hands twisting the tongue of things
to say a line
that shakes
and will not go
where I ask it to
unless I run it straight
to the edge
and out of room.
Circle back
to make a nose,
then back again
for the mustache with its bristling comb-like hairs
because you can only go over straight--
all things connected,
no thing coming out of nowhere,
everything showing
what came before.
There is this tension,
and the skin of it
like a skater on a blade,
a wobbling beginner who can't stand
where the thin edge of things
once made will take her.
So break it.
Shake it.
Begin again.
Popsicle
White paper that sticks
to the frost on top
of the smooth twin tongs
of a Popsicle.
The tongue depressor handles
that will taste of grape and wood
when you get done,
and the way you break it
down the center,
give half of it away
like friendship bracelets,
then suck the edges smooth.
Frozen finger of ice.
Tongue against the cold of it, the burn of it,
drawing out the sweet from the center,
and how it fills your mouth with colored juice--
grape, or orange, or green whatever-it-is . . .
lime?
Warm spit on your achy-cold teeth.
and the sun on your face
and your arms,
sitting on he curb
on the corner
in the brand new summer air--
the rest of June, and all of July,
and then August after that
in front of you, and
"Look at my tongue!" you say,
"It's purple."
And you feel it,
fat and numb in your mouth,
and strange,
like you just arrived on this earth in a body,
or it just showed up like that, suddenly,
this odd new lump of meat
you can talk and taste
and touch with.
