You,

body, will not deceive me—engrossed
          in these green river weeds—muddy
     eyelashes and steam curling around the thighs.

If no black silt fills the air-pockets
where the blue ceramics drown the earth will not
          wheeze for your porpoise movements will not
     sway the unseen, day that
resolves around the wrinkled red hoax sun.


          Opened the
   heat hour      with a flushed cheek through
       that doorway: oiled the hinges of disrepair,
   removed flesh with      a cloth of turpentine then
                    stuffed it in the mouth
as good as Art History, quicksilver corpse, la luna,
   downriver jazz pine
                    dizzying jackrabbits
planet an everlasting nocturne


                          Broke through this sturdy levy
with papa’s dementia      colored glass sprayed
across my obsessive photographs of hands
     with each obstacle, there was an old saying
   “when the river dries, the geyser”
over each plateau a cactus needle pathway where
salt days— unresponsive to reality
   like someone dunking a dead man’s foot in a bucket
      of rainbow bubbles— wherein we
meet again. Old lover. Transformed by the criss-
cross rain. Face
   the consistency of clam meat.