Alexander

Slouching with integrity,

bettering myself.

Stop closing in on it

and forgetting to fill the void around.

Beaming at lie-flat socks

that don’t huddle, cramped in ones or twos.

They lie there full of pride, 

beaming themselves,

doing the least work possible.

the light

I can see myself

projected out

    Here 

as the shadow

    there

as a finger.

Point as it may

I can't seem 

to capture it all in myself,

but with no pointing

there would be no object.

tempting

I tempt myself

to say what I mean. 

But no!

Words can sting

and burrow sharply into veins,

quicken the pulse,

linger.

I tempt myself 

to take a breath

or two

But oh! 

there's a word skimming by

Red and Shiny in its tempered shell.

Watch it pass,

let it go.

Maybe it won't be so close by tomorrow.

my body

From time to time

I think I might

pluck off every hair from my body —

temple to ear, ear to hip, hip to ankle —

undo the skin from around my jaw and navel

peel it back and off

to spread it out lengthwise

line up my organs end to end

'cross my eyes

unstring my muscles and tendons from the frame —

that ties it and gives it shape —

step by step drop bones long - ways,

just to see what's all there

and how far it reaches.

Because this body, it feels at once

flayed open for the world

but closed up — selfish — for no one.

My fingers are mine, don't try to take them.

keeping clean

Tell me:

Why is the pouring out

always more defining

than the filling in,

The washing clean 

more finite

than the mess-making —

If I could, I'd leave it tidy

but I forget what it was like before.

what's the word

What's the word
for when all of the appetites
have been whet,
but there's still an 

unnamed, untouched some-thing left