little party
by Sarah Darwiche
I’m saying
I’m imagining my body in the
Riverbed, grime and tresses
All around.
A little party. I’m saying
a little party. I’m saying
bring the parts that haven’t been packed with hard earth
for a while, hard pack and hard pack and
hard pack. red berries running down our throats
and
rushing in moonlight, a stream of maroon punches.
I’m saying
shut up.
the part where I crawl in front of the crowd on the riverbed,
choke on some dirt in the mouth.
shut up,
I know.
I’m getting there.
******
Here it is – you, not you. a little moonlight falling
Over
the lake.
the early dawn turning,
mouthing itself
into
the dark.
one punch to the ground
two three.
this is the funeral scene -- the fur shadows of
my people, my people, my people,
building their stands into the river and letting
their stands rip the sludge down, slow, all roaming
wooden
hands.
look at them,
look at them and all the bodies
they’ve got.
I’ve got the body where
The dark tree has
rings inside it eating closer and closer as
its heart,
and it asks for a drink,
some hands
and
a kiss.
*******
here we are again. at the scene. It takes
Itself so seriously.
sorry, mom. the
snuffed dark-ache
done by the headlights.
and the light picking its opened body
through the leaves –
All this self, coming to hang
on to the skin.
****
and tonight we’re doing
dirt surgery,
and my body’s dancing on the riverbed,
and my body’s lying in the riverbed,
and I’m saying
all the couples on the trains
are in love. a little craze,
a little froth.
a line in the cement, that I want.
tracing and re-tracing its loss.
it keeps pushing its forehead in place. it has a grip on its hands
you, that I want.
– a real wild, wild night.
and it’s about to be the part where
I want to say you’re beautiful –
My feet kissing my teeth, my feet
kissing my mouth, my body throwing fits
on both sides
of the dirt,
all the pummeling in the beat.
it’s about to be
the part where my heart waits for you
to want me with
still hands, again .
The horse thrumming out to
the dark, flat night –
and my hands killing the horse.
******
Once,
something lovely in the bones.
and
in the light dragging in through the window,
and in my body in there.
.
my mouth trying to eat and
eat out at the dirt,
Up and out of the crash.
listening – to the
scraped and lost loves, to twirls
thrown all around.
still, to the sound of teeth, breaking.
*****
a prayer on the knees, and
you still won’t play. i’m saying a party
and some dirt in my mouth,
your tongue filling up
more and more of my mouth, and it’s tired.
so tired.
you’re saying your body on the
other side of the lake. your body poured out
on the other side and swirled,
broken sheen.
your body
a body, calm.
********
look at me
say desperate. say
wild with it.
throw my body out and
out to the lake, to the final peace. say
Fuck you, I got there.
I know.
say a little party with all my mouth, bright
Angry pop swallowing the dark bob in the horizon.
there’s no sound and there’s no dancing.
the crush.
there’s
the night in my body, and
my body
in the riverbed.