for Magali

Once I saw my signature forged 
on the top deck window by a crooked branch 
and I consider myself a reasonable person 
not too gone to the religion of reason. 
It is holy and human to produce relation 
between imprint and consequence, to bid 
the arbitrary appear like a pale Victorian child 
in the doorway of a governess. 
There is nothing more “cultural” 
than the assigning of “nature”
just as it is perfectly natural to pause 
and read your reflection for ambiguities
in the windows of someone else’s car.
And language? Is a boy letting go his balloon. 
You don’t want to be alone, but that’s what 
you are…de-dum de-dum de-dah.

for Imogen WK

I am a beak / I am in a relationship
	come into it \ from where you are
perhaps to rest / your monologue 
	perhaps to cry \ by the window 
where someone might see you / crying 
	like you, I know myself  \ to be unique  
like you, I imagine myself / similar I 
	have an equals sign \ at my middle  
like a blood trail / through the desert 
	I am a book you are in \ a rhetorical 
statement / at once I might contain 
	everything \ or shut myself 
into an object / like a person 
	you must decide to move 
through your life \ a hand you no longer
	hold is still / reaching out 
from the sill \ of thought 
	as you put down / your pet 
ambitions \ or water glass  
	to steady your body / without spilling  
the name that frightens \ and embosses 
	your greylight hours / with torn-off love  
your cultivated manner fails \ as you 
	kneel before an animal / porous 
and wounded and ready \ for the next 
	banal summons / before the laws 
of motion \ a corruptible body 
	corrupting / it’s happening 
always I have something \ to tell you 
	always / the moment has past 

for Lisa R

Every kettle sings, and all of the time
of water of the weight and yes
of water of water escaping or preparing 
to escape of loving or torturing water
of letting water go of aperture and matter
of magnanimity towards inevitable air; 
an empty kettle is nonetheless full of song: 
and will he not come again? it may sing, or 
would I contain a gumball if I could? or 
all my smooth body! It is reasonable to guess
though the boiling kettle sings how 
memory: is a crooked charm – 
sentimental brace position against 
novelty’s locomotion; is pressure held 
to the mortal wound and permanent 
distraction and O there are no repetitions; 
the feeling you have been here before 
is always a new feeling; here it comes.