Did anyone ever ask any one of Nikita’s daughters

after Alexander Pushkin

Did anyone ever ask any one of Nikita’s daughters
if they wanted a vagina from the devil’s basket.
conjured by a witch and stored with so little ice.
an organ that had been ridden cross-country on
horseback. had no mind of its own and had flown
up into the trees with all thirty-nine to get stuck up
in the leaves. Clearly not queer at all given that it flew
down at the site of any old whatsit. and furthermore
not even to fuck it, just to crawl back into a box
like the whatsit wanted of the crew of thingums. Witch
only knows how many grimy fingers the poor things
endured. No one asked the tzar’s daughters
if they wouldn’t rather be holeless, lipless and better
unbewitched by devil and hag and flasher
envoy and kingly pop than to lift their skirts
to anyone wanting to see what was missing. or unmissed.

The neighbor’s buddy watching my screen through the window

Because the tube is turned to the window, the neighbor’s buddy         coughs
a cough of pigeons. a hack of grackle. a bird out the window. It’s         like

the neighbor’s buddy on my ledge, smoking. The neighbor’s                 chum in the blinds,
the eyes that peer, the eyes that open. propped and sunglassed.         a kind

of smoking blackbird, an inveterate

tombirder. His leather wings are splayed. his rock in the cold.            He has one foot on ice porch
and one foot wiggle. one foot rockerbird. a one-foot band. His            cough is the cough

of the myriad smoker, the murder of smoker. There is quiver of         murder. His cough
is the cough of a white boy, northern. of a Michigan leather. of           the white boy jacket,

his leather like hair. The air is gray like cig smoke. gray like ash.
gray with the onset of northern porchlike spring and its                       porchstep rain. Wet

and snowy, the neighbor, his buddy in leather. like me, in                     leather. In a wet snow,
rocking. in a porch band leather. leather in April. April wet and         still, one foot to the other.

Oregon Trail, Missouri

(November 9, 2016)

 

O trail up outta here, how long ago
            you started to wander, crawling milkweed
through dependence, in grope toward sprawl
            dominion. Rather red in your rove from southern transition,

thick of land use, what soft you carved of forest to get through
            once dirt and fur and blood of original American and bloody-scrape knuckles
of emigrant pioneer. O what you woke from sleep. Dogwood drift
            loud and settling toward expanse, like how a pride’s breath

            can move blossom to shiver and roll over false aster, shape
border from its river source, return to river as fat pocketbook, mussel
            of critical habit, long breather and muscular foot
under cypress and promise of tree. O path for packed wagon

            who dragged black slave alongside conduit, some salt
of new breeze, who swore deciduous freedom, and relented only upon lawsuit
            in new land you opened to. O route to burrow, you,
like pipeline, leak the grease of wayward stream. Trade off

            and pick off growth in the way. How used, you. When
blue-promised god, some Negroes took up pack and white man’s pack,
            and given distance of black body to statehood pith, only made holy
states away. O what became you was over, the leaving grip bragged
 
            all the way to the sea, already plundered and exhausted
of Shoshone patience and homesteading what hellbender
            you’ve become. What uprooted clearing. Stray cattle worth
whole encampments in fool’s dust and deed. O what haven from man

            who believe in America, only all to himself? Imagine

a way of shape that doesn’t strangle. An arbor
            of its very own leaf. Now, imagine
tern and piping plover that keeps expansion
            along its shore. A settlement for spring’s deliver, not pipeline.

Imagine redbud staying put in its breeze and keeping us safely
            strong as trees and dark as the bark of our open souls. Imagine
the park of evergreen surrender,
            to a calmer, blue sky our govern might protect.

Imagine bald eagle again, not because white-headed
            but imagine bird, simple body of eager sea, talons
stretched over gold proportion. In summers, thick shiner.
            In winter, undisturbed darter along somewhat snow, unstressed

by factory and loud humming fuel. O prairie of blazing star, imagine
            full caves of left alone, unraided buffalo
clover, unhelped. Unfringed orchid, unwestern. Imagine
            ground hallow, free to forage

its riverine root and plant vigor along the Missouri.

Rabbit

for Tarfia and Fita

             The rabbit has a funny set of tools. He jumps.
             or kicks. muffled and punching up. In pose
             the rabbit knows, each side of his face to whom.
             he should belong. He hobbles and eyes. This
             is the dumb bun allegiance. This bunny, even dry and fluff
             is aware, be vicious. will bite down your finger stalk.
             will nick you good in the cheery web of your palm.
             Those claws are good for traction. and defense.
             This bunny, forgive him. There is no ease. His lack
             of neck is all the senses about a stillness.
             stuck in a calm. until household numbers upend
             his floor. until the family upsets the nest
             and traipses off. Then stuck in a bunny panic.

             We each stab at gratitude. In our nubbing, none
             of us do well. We jump. We kangaroo. We soft seeming,
             scatter and gnaw. Maybe the only way forward
             is to sleep all day. one eye open. under the sink.
             Like the rabbit, we could sit in our shit.
             Chew at the leaf of others’ dinner. Make
             of each tile on the floor a good spot to piss. No,
             it doesn’t get much better. And like the rabbit
             we do not jump well from heights. We linger the dark
             until it is safe to come out. To offer a nose.
             a cheek for touch. the top of a crown. Nothing
             makes us happier than another rabbit.

Related Poems

Verga

"...women don't want the men to go into the bush because the women will only be raped but the men will be killed...I have seen a woman who was caught in the bush by several men. They tied her legs to two trees while she was standing. They raped her many times and before leaving her they put stones in her vagina..."

—Abshiro Aden Mohammed, Kenya, 2000 Dagahaley Somali Refugee Camp from A Camel for the Son by Fazal Sheik

Before leaving her they put stones in her vagina
The men will only be raped but the stones will be killed
The bush caught many men to go into the stones
The stones will be killed by several trees before leaving
The bush tied the men to the trees in their vaginas
Before bush go to trees they kill many stones
Many men will be caught by the trees in the bush
Several trees will be raped by the bush and killed
Only the caught men will be stoned and bushed by the trees
Several men were caught by the trees before leaving
The men will be killed but the stones will only be treed
The stones put many trees into the men's killed vaginas
By the bush, the trees were raped only several times
Before leaving, the vaginas were seen standing in the stones

Exhibition

when i show you the illicit
behind a fiberoptic veil—
obstruction is a kind of foreplay.
yes—this is an intentional seduction.

this behind is a fiberoptic veil
i build an economy on anything i can.
yes—this intentional seduction
is suppose to be a delight.

build this economy on anything i can’t.
my taste is acquired, so take your time.
suppose, this is a delight—
the mystery, yours to solve.

you take & taste my acquired time.
take what wilts from my lips—
you—the only mystery unsolved.
i can never stop questioning my mouth.

take all that wilts, my lips.
where every fantasy i try leaves me dead—
i can never stop talking about my mouth.
here, my tongue is bile & tomorrow.

they leave me dead in every fantasy i try—
the overgrown prophecy i am to witness.
bile becomes swallow here & tomorrow—
some end time we have already faced.

the prophecy lives to overgrow the witness.
no future belongs to my body.
these end-times we already face.
my testimony is the absolute of what i know.

i belong to the future in my body—
will truth survive the transmission?
i testify in absolutes of what i can not know.
what do we make of the delay?

what will survive the transmission?
reveal the half-life of the illicit,
unmake myself as a means of delay
watch for the obstructive foreplay.

Things that stink

Drunks
their breath their sweat
especially when they are lying on top of you
or when they have fallen off of you and you are listening to them snore and fart
when they are your father stumbling up the stairs or passed out on the sofa
in all his clothes smelling of cigarettes vomit and stale women’s cologne
when he is smacking your mother around and you can smell her near
you are supposed to be sleeping
when they sit next to you on the subway
when they yell “hey baby” as you are walking to school
when they are happy dancing with their pants falling off
slobbering on your neck playing cards talking shit
just mean

when they are lilies at a funeral

bed sheets the day after when the dark has removed its mask