The Poetry Marathon

heaven is corn chip smell
just after waking emanating from my dogs paws

which are burrowing into my face
which is burrowing into her softest

face fur nuzzled nuzzling we snort
& are free

through see-through sleeves
her mothers fist stained skin shows purple

in her mind she is swimming through
radio static very much like rays dissolved

glass everywhere and the ceiling she thinks of
a round window there & little flowers that rust

the very bad man has not yet become spiritual ash
though he died just after she spoke forgiven

into his body’s ear his body which she no longer belongs to
she tries to smooth the family over

for years she buttons up her mother & it rains as if nothing
has happened—some kind of howl

she confesses it all to gods waist

an ache inside an ache    is still

an ache    inside an ache is still

an ache

my hips can’t be heard crying out
from lack of hinged
use    no they can’t
be heard    nor can tibia   nor fibula
—those bones that sparked
im not just listing
body parts here
whose to know
why things break why they grow
together again— cuff
of new bone formed around
the break when it happened
god let you live again i’m talking
about god and where is god
in trauma the body remembers

i remember there being no god at that time

–its inescapable this poem for example
wears blue eye shadow    big hair    star-loop
earrings  because its stuck in the 80s   :    so is the author

she was born in a body   where she longed
for more-spacious    when she feels like she feels
like her body was in the road    like she tied her body
her waist / her birdsong   she swallowed
a person she has lived
with her body

her hands watch    she forgot what she wanted  to see
she eavesdrops on her body   some sort of old
tired thing    she builds rapport with
shiny knobs    she walks with a deep
note    she feels like a paper
of glass   has yellow contractions

she feels a bit of love or a car yard
in her body here —eat a piece
of her wrist    her bones moan from
within    are you my teeth she asks / she can feel
the slurred rhythm of his words
pass thru her body    a rippling bruise  :    a pain she will use

burned it down down & more down
till the fire couldnt eat anymore till the fire couldnt
breathe now its all gone— my life
is all gone

am I not supposed to weep grieve
it now that I stand in the smoking steaming
earth of what-now of never-been-to-this-place-before— so many deaths

preceded this place I now find myself
big death   little death   in-between deaths

this one little death went to the market
this death wants roast beef

& lets not forget the little death that howled
Itself all the way to a home-not-yet-in-existence

across an entire continent she drove
to make-find

try two    if not three
try four   four decades of trying
& learning & trying
just a little further
around the bend & im still trying not to cry : why is crying so hard
you’d think id have learned by now   the only way is through it—

they never told me to follow my heart because they didn’t want my heart broken like theirs
but when you come out broken when your moms broken growing you in utero
broken is what you know   you can’t unbreak a person
made broken any more than you can an object —even one hemmed whole with gold
stronger along the faults   remembers its history in its bones

i am doing my best these days to live my face kept
still not like poker face like dead-face —word scamper
comes to mind to scamper like a squirrelly squirrel scampers
because I am afraid & i have broken
out my toolbox : all tools
to help keep me alive long longer longest

tools like dog-bff-ash bones
living dogs feather i am now going
to my own church where tree animal element
are my pastors who take me out
to the pasture time and again loyal as my lung
they are the tools in my box the magical
ingredients of spells cast
by candle light
when a pandemic
is raging theres no where to escape
& homespun ritual helps keep me alive

like drowning the light holding
you won’t hurt after you’ve given up

the tentacle float of your body buoyant
as moon-air after you surrender

you wont be alone anymore don’t worry
sarah alone is earth as grass is earth is just a blink

then poof do not worry your body forgives
you can you feel weight lessen

by leagues can you hear
the switch are you listening for it

sarah the saddest part of your body is where
you do not love it are you lost

in thought child the trees have growth
rings too

the shame does not belong wedged
in between iris and pupil shine and star

does not belong to any part of you
same as to no part of the sky sarah home is where you find

your integrity don’t be afraid
of home the most beautiful thing about your body is who it is loyal to