Four Poems

Saussure, sorry

I AM NOT A STRUCTURALIST
I DO NOT LIKE MY LANGUAGE
RIGOROUS OR SELF-REFERENTIAL.
TEXT TELLS ME WHAT TO TASTE
WHEN I EAT YOU FOR BREAKFAST.
THE VERB HAS NEVER CONFESSED
ITSELF TO ME. THE VERB IS ICON.
THE VERB WANTS ME LISTEN
AND STOP CHEWING ON YOUR HIP.

Conditional conditional

Do not go outside.
There is weather happening.

If you go outside, it will touch you.
You cannot imagine what it’s like out there.

If you could imagine, you would think
of large rooms, their vaulted ceilings
smashed open. Rats, eyes white
with cataracts, hasting in the undertow.
Crumbling walls sheeted in lead
and hissing rainwater.

You would think ‘kissing’
of walking through the air, the slight
sheen of cold conjuring saliva.

Your visions would fail you,
beyond these walls.

This is also the apology

There’s a hole in my dress
and I’m naming it after you
From now on, all messianic
decrees and other things
I wish to tell you will be
directed to this address

Communication will largely
take place on Tuesdays
when this dress is worn
When it is not puffed up
with life, I will have nothing
to say to you The nothing

will sound like this: intervals
of six minutes Punctuated
by the small pop of a sparrow’s
lung bursting Our nothing
is those mass deaths of birds
and such I keep reading about

Guerrilla

There is time to assail, to the trees!
This time is limited
by the sign for death

by the sign for flame.
There is thin opportunity to resist,
you must assail, to the trees.

Move quickly to relocate
to the canopy. The field up there
is open ground, but time is limited.

Do not be afraid to set up sentry:
eyes will still follow you
as you assail, go to the trees.

See how the horizon breaks
without the margins of soil?
Remember, time is limited,

aim carefully. The planes up here
are vulnerable to our spitting.
There is time to assail, to the trees!
This is no time to be limited.