Thirstiness is Not Equal Division

I swear to God I swear at GodI won’t

mention what He does to meI lack nothing I need

unless you count everything I wantI’m meant

to be spreading tenderness over the earth like seeds

like wormsinstead I’ve been shoveling coal

into burning housesfanning the ashhold your

applausehold the horns curling out from my skull

which are getting so long now and so sharpif you think

of evolution as ancestral advicethen a baby’s eyelids

drooping from fruitsugar could mean this world

is too sweet to bear awakegive me an orgy of sleep

give me sleep from every anglefor years I stood

in the semeny ginkgo staring at my handsbelieving

in afterlivesthinking one day I’d wake into

a new kind of bodylike a fish suddenly

breathing air through its eyesit’s easy to give life

as a giftpull a fisherman from frozen water or

put a puppy in a Christmas boxbut it’s harder

to remember stillness is also a prizeconsider

the composer’s fever and the aria it delivered

or the beggar who woke to find a jewel

in his palmonce I saw a girl’s death mask smoothed

by the kisses her father gave it nightlyonce

I cut open my thigh on a razor wire fence and filled

the wound with Kleenexsomehow it healed leaving

only a long white scarthe penalties for my disregard

have always been oversoftdeterring nothing

I’ve made it clear I am not to be trusted with a body

always leaving mine bloodless as icewith just a needle

of breath left in its lungssometimes when I run

I run like a beautiful manin straight lines clean

as spidersilksometimes if I’m silent for long enough

even the wild around me stops moving