i.
just like everything this world offers
anymore—
the fare
and then the stile
pines growing in the sand
when i’m afraid to speak
i make an airtight seal
to keep the oil in the organs clean
i can see my bed
through clear waters
thirty meters deep
in these places you won’t go with me
ii.
that’s what i am now
that’s what we are—
beasts full of worms
when i spoke my first word
a black snake crawled in through my lips
language
a knot that won’t stay tied
i see my reflection in the last flash
of the horizon
and the tears turn to glue in my beard
muscle gives up its body
body its soul
my snake makes a nest
in the bare branches of the spine
hangs a crepescline rope
baits it with a golden band
that catches in my throat
marx, and the vows, and the vulgar birds—
their words spawned
like the mosquito maggots on the water
that took wing and sucked me dry
iii.
like a fly
i crawled from my bed
and i flew
too little lifespan for a home
i only eat blood and salt
like the moonlight
that chops the river down
i sleep on a train
like a shark
my horny limbs
strapped to a narrow pallet
floating four feet off the floor
like a shark’s egg
and like a seagull stranded in the tundra
you were laughing
when i found you
iv.
the swallows are in fine form
wheelingshittingfucking all over irkutsk
and what’s more they speak my language
which is to make a symbol
with their bodies
v.
this is the reason
you gave the horse your mother’s name
in winter
like a worm
you entered from the stomach
spread her fortune on the valley floor
pushed your legs through her hindlegs
and your arms through her fore
couched your head inside her neck
and slept
until the morning came
vi.
disruptions
on their wings
strange
as butterflies’
black and
red and
blue
and even green
those baikal grasshoppers
clinging to
my temples
and arms
in my dreams and
when i shat
or spat up
blood
they returned
me to my
senses
NOTES
lake baikal: in southern siberia, the deepest lake in the world
irkutsk: city and admnistrative center of irkutsk oblast, near baikal
