Oceanic Read online

  Dolomite and quartz pebbles slid from the toes of her sandals—the plunge

  below was so steep, she could not hear where they landed. With one final

  look back to her parents and sister— Her leg lifted and set down again in a

  place where there was only air. She bit her lip.

  So this is what it means to fall:

  a taste of metal and a rush of feathers in her mouth. Her family ran

  to her, a sad effort to change her mind, but it was too late. The last

  sound they heard of Psyche sounded like a sack of heavy fruit

  and something like

  a wing?

  When Psyche woke she found herself in a magnificent house. Citrus-smell

  and each heavy wooden door studded in seashell and coins made of mother-

  of-pearl. A table piled with honey cakes and bowls and bowls of wet berries.

  Jams and rolls and sweetmeats and plates of cheese chilling over ice. She ate

  and ate thinking this was to be her last meal and with a heavy heart full of

  sorrow over missing her family, she at last climbed the stairs to bed.

  Just when the moon and rings of a milk planet sat high and seemed to jump

  a little in the night sky, she felt a rush of wind—

  Venus Instructing Cupid to Torment Psyche

  after the painting of the same name by Jakob de Wit

  Perhaps you think this fig

  is my heart—shriveled,

  cold, filled with black seed.

  Today a child looks seaward

  to the boats hauling a fine catch

  of dogfish. But instead of helping

  the fishermen, he kneels,

  collects abalone shells in a sack

  not for my temple—but to decorate

  Psyche’s doorstep. I will send

  a frilled shark to snatch him.

  I will explain later to the parents.

  I tell you this: if you do not whip

  knots into her hair, or cover

  her toes with weeping blisters

  so wet no bandage could sop

  the blood—you are not a god

  you are not my good son.

  Psyche Considers Her Last Letter from Cupid

  All of them collected

  in a box with blue ribbon,

  like a vein across

  her stupid ribcage.

  His blocky letters, such

  a strange architecture.

  What buildings and what

  windows make up

  this dark village, her heart?

  But

  there is only one brick,

  only one wild(er)ness

  that will ever match his—

  of jungle and blue skunk

  sky. If you try to catch

  a butterfly, a thousand

  filaments of feather

  will dissolve into dust

  on your finger

  and good thumb.

  Of course

  when you find a new

  & bright beetle without

  wings, you’ll get the urge

  to pin her to a linen-covered

  board. So you do

  and you do and you do.

  Upon Hearing the News You Buried Our Dog

  I have faith in the single glossy capsule of a butterfly egg.

  I have faith in the way a wasp nest is never quiet

  and never wants to be. I have faith that the pile of forty

  painted turtles balanced on top of each other will not fall

  as the whole messy mass makes a scrabble-run

  for the creek and away from a fox’s muddy paws.

  I have been thinking of you on these moonless nights—

  nights so full of blue fur and needle-whiskers, I don’t dare

  linger outside for long. I wonder whether scientists could classify

  us as a double star—something like Albireo, sixteen hundred

  light-years away. I love that this star is actually two—one blue

  one gold, circling each other, never touching—a single star

  soldered and edged in two colors if you see it on a clear night

  in July. And if this evening, wherever you are,

  brings you face-to-face with a raccoon or possum—

  be careful of the teeth and all that wet bite.

  During the darkest part of the night, teeth grow longer

  in their mouths. And if the oleander spins you still

  another way—take a turn and follow it. It will help you avoid

  the spun-light sky, what singularity we might’ve become.

  The Body

  Something poisons the sea stars

  in the Pacific. They rip themselves apart,

  twist their arms in gummy knots.

  The arms just walk away from the body:

  the pull, the pull—what a stroll—until the arms

  detach entirely and spill their creamy innards

  onto the ocean floor. I want to do that with my arms—

  maybe just my left one—the one that keeps

  reaching back to your yellow house

  and those slow summers when we grilled out

  almost every night. I want to pull off my arm,

  or maybe just a finger, or three, so I don’t point

  to the playground where our blue dog jumped

  through the rows of swings that still squeak

  their mild annoyance from each slobbery leap

  they endured. Maybe I just want to rid myself

  of knuckles so I can’t knock on the door you now share

  with another—just so I can see her sweet, blank face—

  so I can laugh and say, Sorry, sorry: wrong house!

  Forgive me, I am nothing but a thumbnail. Yes—that’s

  what I’d get rid of—my nail now blackened

  with each thump of a sentence. See how

  I accidentally brought you up again

  when I picked up this nail, this hammer?

  The Pepper Kingdom

  KERALA

  Never has the world seen so much rumble

  and sail over such a small berry. Small,

  dark meteor, perfect pop of fire—you docked

  millions of boats to the southern coast of India,

  kept so many folds of pale flesh awake and skittled

  at night. Dreams of quicker trade routes, maps

  and battle-plans inked in case anyone

  tried to stop them from bringing back

  sackfuls of peppercorn. Every kingdom

  must have a king. Will he ask her to sit

  beside him? Where is the crown,

  the silly dog, the jester? Any minute now,

  all the linalool near their noses will set

  them with delightful, rightful sneezes.

  One-Star Reviews of the Taj Mahal

  a found poem

  Too bad it was man-made.

  As a stand-alone attraction I guess it’s passable

  but compared to the McDonald’s at Celebration Mall

  it’s just meh.

  Not for Indians. Very tacky.

  There was no cloakroom at the South Gate!

  The garden is also very basic. Everything is basic.

  We were ripped off by asking local shopkeepers to hold our bags for us.

  You will be swarmed, swarmed by street vendors and children swarmed by

  camels and parking lot goons and children and cheat cameramen and stalker

  tourist guides and camel children and footwear thieves, so: MIND YOUR

  BELONGINGS!

  It’s just an old love story.

  But is it love or hate?

  I was told to get out with my selfie stick!

  Don’t even think about seeing it under a full moon.

  Can you believe this tomb has no rides?

  First Time on the Funicular

  MONTE SAN SALVATORE, SWITZERLAND


  All I can think is what happens if the cables snap

  and we slide down this striped Swiss mountain

  made of oceanic quartz on its edelweiss-covered face.

  At the amethyst peak is a lightning museum

  where you can bolt a bright coin of knowledge

  into your neck like the pale-green monster

  of classic horror movies, back when no blood

  was ever seen, never pulsed or throbbed

  on-screen. And the lightning collector has not

  seen action in ages, no arcing low to engulf

  a tree in flame because most lightning here

  catches between clouds. Our kids play back home

  with their grandparents, and what have we done—

  first we dared eat the finest risotto, drink wine

  over a white tablecloth before noon, and now

  we are sliding up a mountain to see about lightning.

  Serves us right if we are struck. But our landing

  is soft, the glossy red doors of the funicular open

  and spill us all a few steps away from the cinnabar

  summit, dotted with blue moths. Even in thinned air

  I still reach for your hand. Before our fingers

  laced, I’m certain the old ladies who stared

  at us the whole way up saw it, too: the spark,

  the crackle, the brilliant strike between us.

  One-Star Reviews of the Great Wall of China

  a found poem

  This is not an experience of a lifetime.

  It was awful. I couldn’t enjoy

  the scenery because I was too busy

  trying not to trample

  or be trampled. Besides that,

  it was great. Ha ha, just kidding:

  I hated it.

  The crowds are crazy!

  The pollution is crazy!

  No one can speak English!

  Back in my day the walls were more beautiful and they didn’t have to be so

  tall. I didn’t feel good with my leg that day, and my wife really wanted to

  visit all the Chinese Wall and I said “Ok, let’s do it!” but I soon got tired. I

  failed in front of my wife because of this wall, so I’m not going back.

  It was raining.

  It was foggy.

  It was raining.

  Too much fog.

  Too much rain.

  It’s just a wall.

  The Pepper King Returns

  He listens to the tock of two clocks—

  neither is synced. The Pepper King

  does not know how to walk on ice:

  his boots slide with every fourth step or so.

  He is used to fine sand and root sludge,

  full of rock salt and shell pieces. The soles

  of his feet are as thick as stale ends of bread.

  They will laugh at him, but when he returns

  home he will prepare such a fine soup, his son

  will wake from his rabbit dreams and ask for

  an umbrella. It sometimes rains indoors,

  and his child knows this. The child will learn

  the songs of ice and snow. The Pepper King

  finds it natural to name his knives. One for slicing

  the delicate skin of tomato, a jagged one

  for dark meats, still another to debone a fine

  and flaky fish. When the Pepper King serves

  his son winter soup full of potatoes and cumin,

  the boy will eat and eat and clink his spoon

  until you hear something like bells. The snow

  yeasts itself in banks and slopes against

  the boards of his house. The Pepper King never

  knew the rising of his breath in the pineapple fields,

  such a sweet and silent thanksgiving.

  Starfish and Coffee

  after the song of the same name by Prince

  Prince knows the sexiest meal of the day is breakfast—

  the meal that separates the sexy from the selfish

  after a night so wild the fitted sheets slough

  halfway off the bed like Velella velella jellyfish—

  the bluesail left on the shore after a riotous night.

  And that’s how you feel after tumbling

  like sea stars on the ocean floor over each other.

  A night where it doesn’t matter

  which are arms or which are legs

  or what radiates and how—

  only your centers stuck together.

  Underwater volcanoes send up pillow lava,

  and after a night like that you rest

  your head on it, caring not about

  the burn but the startle of falling asleep

  with his lip just inside yours.

  All the shifts and small adjustments

  with this fish-bright and beautiful body.

  A nightstand knocked clean of its clock.

  What care and flair goes into the person

  who rises after a night like that to mix

  flour, sugar, eggs, and oil—who puts on

  a pot of hickory coffee, a fine butter dish,

  a vial of syrup on the table—then goes back

  to the bed where you lie: cheeks still rosy,

  one hand still clutching a fistful of pillow,

  hair tentacled over the side of the bed

  your three hearts so full, so hungry, so purple.

  Naming the Heartbeats

  I’ve become the person who says Darling, who says Sugarpie,

  Honeybunch, Snugglebear—and that’s just for my children.

  What I call my husband is unprintable. You’re welcome. I am

  his sweetheart, and finally, finally—I answer to his call and his

  alone. Animals are named for people, places, or perhaps a little

  Latin. Plants invite names for colors or plant-parts. When you

  get a group of heartbeats together you get names that call out

  into the evening’s first radiance of planets: a quiver of cobras,

  a maelstrom of salamanders, an audience of squid, or an ostentation

  of peacocks. But what is it called when creatures on this earth curl

  and sleep, when shadows of moons we don’t yet know brush across

  our faces? And what is the name for the movement we make when

  we wake, swiping hand or claw or wing across our face, like trying

  to remember a path or a river we’ve only visited in our dreams?

  Chess

  Exactly four different men have tried

  to teach me how to play. I could never

  tell the difference between a rook

  and bishop, but I knew the horse meant

  knight. And that made sense to me,

  because a horse is night: soot-hoof

  and nostril, dark as a sabled evening

  with no stars, bats, or moon-blooms.

  It’s a night in Ohio where a man sleeps

  alone one week, and the next, the woman

  he will eventually marry leans her body

  into his for the first time, leans a kind

  of faith, too—filled with white crickets

  and bouquets of wild carrot. And

  the months and the honeyed years

  after that will make all the light

  and dark squares feel like tiles

  for a kitchen they can one day build

  together. Every turn, every sacrificial

  move—all the decoys, the castling,

  the deflections—these will be both

  riotous and unruly, the exact opposite

  of what she thought she ever wanted

  in the endgame of her days.

  My South

  O glistening perfumed South! my South!

  Walt Whitman

  My South started with sugar

  boiled and spilled for birds

  green as my mom’s signature


  ring, three emeralds in a band

  across her finger. When I first

  moved here, I hardly knew anyone

  except for some brushy armadillos

  who stood and showed their bellies,

  hissing when my little Chihuahua

  and I walked too close. And when

  you start with sugar you think

  you’d end in salt: spicy shrimp

  and grits, a rim of a glass, a rind

  of peppered bacon. My South runs

  a bit of beaver spit along the edges

  of crepe myrtles, towhee feathers

  lost in leaf litter, and a bit of ladybug

  blood from the curdle of them slow-

  crawling over the sunset side

  of my house. I never thought I could