So odd like a gun and
has to go off
with you, to unlock the next level
to unlock the drain
to uncap the expensive purple marker
and smell its hue drain
each vivid molecule unzipping
like a train
simultaneously leaving and arriving
like gin on the tongue
at some auspicious seaport of the brain

Will you
retract the dewclaw
rewrap each silhouette
for maximum
frivolity and shrewdness
and land
like a cat on the lawn
sure as a lawn dart, a spear and a bee bee
which all have the same life purpose:
to make a bee-line
to point to the eye
to punctuate
improve it
a bankshot from childhood lawlessness
thrown into all possible futures
preserved in the aqueous humor
like eggs preserved in the pickling jar
or a cat in lemonade
what’s barking in this scene
that’s not the dog
it’s the cat
that’s my gift to you

I will ride the Fragonard
-pink-slipper down the Fragonard-
throat of the frog
separate the black flies from their wings
I mean from flight
yet bring them into the true beauty
of their Latin names
musca domestica and drosophila
wingless but arm’d as if with beauty
maybe it’s beauty maybe we can’t tell
the large shell with a goddess in it
i hate that limp print–
roll that up and drop it behind the fridge
ugh it might combust — fish it out again with a yardstick

flatten it out
put it somewhere safe
which is somewhere away from the eye
a further basement of a further banishment
the farthermost cornice of some farthermost room
inside inside
the corneal blue
your bridegroom rides away from and leaves you with
that key to the room that is your doom
lovely
let me lift that key from you

the reticulated scales of the spyglass
fit one into another
the more inside you go
the more gold and smaller
the golden fish
dunked in the river for her vanity
well, fish her out
too while we’re at it and also
fish out the river from its bed
fish the sleeve of the river out of the river
rinse it in vinegar
and pin it on the line with navyblue pins
— the pink
scale of the fish, the bride white
internal river, and the navyblue woods
which close their fishmouths at the scene

close their eyes at this the pins
clothes their jaws at an eye
clothes their eyes with a hinge-pin
lock it– lock the eye itself
clapping for itself
with one hand with the other
clapping itself shut
on the tiny telephone stand
a hutch, notch or knob
to rest a printless finger on
under the shellpink
interior of the brain–
to think pink and wait–

the clock can’t talk
because its mouth is full of pins
it looks on cross as a cat
gin and fizzy bitters
rise all around the green plot
the pilot rides his by-plane by in the sky
clean as a nursery ceiling
unsinged
and while the sun thinkens in the yard
I’ll take a yard of this
slit it with your eggtooth
I’m so sick of this place

but it’s the only place