Crepuscular?
2023
no one told me what it means to be crepuscular
suspended in brackish water
chained to the sand
seaweed that wraps, seeks
to watch holy salt mountains rise around you,
the ones that only you can see,
sharp, harsh against yellowing skies.
and the green,
the one that speaks of those before you
translated rays, waves
the sky was never meant to be this decisive.
as if to confirm your suspicions,
hoards of hermit crabs rise from the sand beneath your feet
to drink the moonlight and cut your chains
but your binds find unbreaking
no one told you leaving would be this hard.
that instincts might still give in,
that the full moon may drive you to receding tides and old habits.
to shuffle and swim with the sharks and birds
and all those who cannot stand the overhead sun
you are their god returned to bear witness
the moon is full for you
the breeze softens to caress you
and the reds deepen into the waters almost blue
self-cannibalism
2023
mistranslation
2023
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experiment
2023
hesitantly and softly
i extend to you my solemn whistle
a sort of learning, testing.
through selective gene activation playgrounds
i see the veins in your arms, bioluminescent.
our minds turn to our bodies and grasp for what could be
still, your teeth gnash against my skin
and you ask me to sing to you as a bird
i oblige
write that down,
words may lose meaning in the morning,
but i have never been this important.
the sun rises, and i slip.
deficiency does not suit you.
but how can i tell you that ?
you phototropism seeker.
your movement tracks behind my eyelids,
and glass shatters in my ears each time you touch me.
i never paint you
i never tell you my dreams
instead, i let your experiments touch my tongue
and slip my hand into the pocket where you hid my glasses
reproducible research
2023
sibling, synonymous with
hypotheses, function, peculiar formations
and vegetative reproduction.
guilt and all that comes with it
Taxodium
the orientation of both leaves and branchlets.
needlelike, scalelike, radially distributed around the branchlets.
just like mine.
oriented, often ascending.
morphological intergradation.
violence that only we know,
that we cannot make up for, except to call eachother on our drives home.
often intrigued by swollen bases, or buttressestermite mounds,
outgrowths of the shallow, meristematic layer, the tissues that transport
i am accustomed to these things, but maybe you are not.
this should be easier.
softer soils
In spite of a plethora of hypotheses,
the garden always grows better the second spring
so let me do this for you.
Where they overlap in distribution, however
i want to make things easier for you
say the hard things first so that it softens the blow
In spite of much research and a plethora of hypotheses,
much remains unknown
i say my piece under my breath
did you hear me?
a pact
2023
finite life,
i would like to reimagine
pacts between wind and wood
that might allow me listen in
the trees speak for me and of me
in the way they leave their scratches
across your forearm
and their mud between my toes
the wind parts your branches
divinely, feverishly
and i cram toothache leaves
into my mouth
black loam hides under my nails
i rinse my hands in cold water
but still, i want to leave my handprint
on your shirt hem
how self-centered
for me to desire the
joy of nitrogen fixation
and pain of metal in my skin
jealousy of a symbiotic body
2023
an absence of absolutes
battered branches
changing leaves
and ghost limbs that never existed
violent desire
and deep-rooted frustration
i feel oak gnarls between my fingers
and am jealous of their age
my body the trunk
obligate angiosperms
take refuge, dysphoria
commands my xylem
i havent showered in a week
looking down at my legs
and the space in between them
i wish i was wood instead of flesh
a nostalgia for a boyhood
that only exists in photographs of
my hair cut too short
by the barber who heard me wrong
root holoparasites threaten my resources
and i mourn a symbiotic body
seeds, leaves, and flowers
i wish i could grow
irregular metamorphosis
i sympathize
with leaves that turn to sepals
and a calyx stuck in the bud
claw at my body
with fingers that leave scratches
climb me like you believe
that i am your tree
the space between us rings
with sonic hauntology
that we both hear
in each others moans
carve me, paint me
with extra limbs
that move like
i have a semblance of control
