THE LANGUAGE TO NEVER CLOUD

II weigh down the pages of the book with a small pumpkin

at the spine. We at least hope 

to be symmetrical. The water bottle is called PATH,

source: the futurized airport, reusable, infused with variable

salts, since government nutritionists on the ski lift now lament—

that the banana is whole, not like our quants. 

So, gulps of a cloud, with their profuse beckonings, 

another whole kind operating on the plateau of stinging hands.

Now stinging arises about her eyes, a torch 

at her brows. Observing 

these gnashing sorts, I have no recourse for thinking ghosts

don’t exist in particulate 

form, for I care not who the cloud could be. Burn of lavender

as my palm absorbs it. 

Landing on the small cinema’s floor. And then finally the rain

takes over. If you let the seaweed plume its feathers

in the cloud of soup, you don’t 

have to remember fire. You only have to prong 

the synapse on the barb, a casement made of sprigs 

coronating the head of a blueberry. 

Because of these blades of spurs, 

I trust the language to never cloud over again. To ring, for practicing

hymn. You practice long sword, and eat club lunch. 

At home, the shells, from beachcombing with my parents,

gather dust from the exposed skin 

of trespassers who only visit in the last days my mother lives.

Strangers from her past traverse through our pumpkin-colored home

to her bed. To watch her struggle to swallow a blueberry.

BROTHER WAS SHRUNKEN DOWN

Sheepfolds; and we seem to be expecting the first of  

the moon piercing (faded bright thing, faded bright thing), but until  

then, we settle for the land awash in fearful blue. I have affection 

for clamps. Lady down the street always kept lemon drops. Linden

trees in her driveway. The local kids picked off the cymes  

and came to her door. In the radio play I listen to tonight from

the 30s, I close my eyes toward a cinnamon bear growling at a crazy

quilt dragon–in search of the silver star to go on top of the tree. How  

quaint to eclipse myself by anything far from reality. The turkey

darks and lights go on a rampage. As my throat seizes from

the dream, peonies grow more languorous. Sunsets 

no longer look familiar, though they happen every day. The character

in the neighborhood seeks me. Opening but allowed to be put

away. Waiting to be goaded by the sunspot, a retina blanching, 

but instead just blinks deliriously, rubbing its ribs against the gate, 

paint peeling. In the dream, I meet Brother in the street. I try to put 

my arms around Him, but He makes his chest concave. He only allows 

his arms to grip on top of mine. There was no chest to chest.

And when we arrived home, my roommate had his family over,

too many people, and Brother shrunk down and cowered under

the metal rungs of the Ikea kitchen shelf in the corner. Loud.

Travertine in the kitchen floor. How we had a quiet, heavyset

television that we never turned on. How Brother lay stone 

dead on the couch as Mother made borscht to feed his blood.

Lozenges on the tongue, striations across your hands, & the ache

set deep in the lung. I hope you are okay, Brother, but I understand  

if you can only be angry.