from “[the old soiled carpet of the wish to be Anaïs]”

            writing on the bruised
body and seeing into the
bruise’s locked backyard, not
psychoanalyzing the incursion
but appreciating its scissory
up and down

———————

            remembering the wish
to be Anaïs Nin—

———————

            stepping on the old soiled
carpet of the wish to be Anaïs—

———————

            liking
the pullulation of scratch marks
and their glistering anonymity

———————

                       florid
British perfume wrongly purchased
for stepfather—the perfume stank
so why did I buy it?

———————

            the entire sky
with a palette knife is scratched
turquoise opal—
no underlying tint to betray it

———————

a sick tint inundating the marsh

———————

I celebrate mother’s sunset
or I am cloud making her
sunset more inspiringly Turneresque—

———————

to scratch through the page until
it dies, and no credit given
to the scratcher