"The writing is superbly assured, and possesses an almost terrible freedom...This book is a private world of sublime internal machination."
- Jordie Albiston
- Jordie Albiston
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News
Chicago Review of Books review / Heather Cox gets it
Pantograph Punch interview / On slant autobiography and justifying "being a poet" Poetry Shelf interview / My childhood weirdness and the reason for the erasures These rough notes / The mystery behind the poem "Traces" and why the cover image 
A few Failed Love Poems
Heathcliff, Traces and Over, here / Sweet Mammalian
Housesit in Spring / Turbine Twenty questions / Minarets New Margins / Tuesday Poem |
THE LIFE OF THE BODY
from Failed Love Poems 1. An evening. A reading. It took me a while to leave the house I had to wait for the house–sat cat to die in her secret life and come home (" ") At the reading someone is reading they are giving away headache wine imagery of garden–backs and animal hands in the poetry quite a few faces on fire in here or just the lips lipsticked I go to dinner with a crush of stranger–professionals I like them all too much and right away we eat Masala til it makes our cells soft bright cheeks bright purse of too much spent in laughing give away the lips in their grease–gloss watch the teeth they bite black pearls of want inside the body rising now to the skin I see you watching them, doctor Yes, to after I say in my head of heads The new music is loud in an old way What we have to say we say over it we strain I buy him he buys me he buys he he buys me we lose track lets go home (" ") I say, but I stay under I lose my nerve My boots are plastic I dance in them but my hands, my arms some kind of chipmunk–snake I had forgot is free is in me 2. I want us to keep talking someone had said You should know who It was you on the phone your voice a pair of scissors that couldn't cut a straight line Home was someone else's black and gold for a bedspread this is where I slept awhile thinking of anyone any one might do instead of you I tried on all the clothes that weren't mine If they were black they let the cold in at the spine If they were gold they never fit they caught at the neck goodbye is odd–sized and no one came and let their fingers get caught in my borrowed zip |