1.
Ceilings,
I see the astral tracks,
written by broom-end on plaster
ceilings. While I’m a creature
peering from robes, I touch
those whorls—while I’m with castoffs,
hair and nail; flake and blot.
...I know the way I’ll move!
I know how I’ll have to see!
Needle-sight, pass through a lighter’s flame,
soap, as the sheets of a vast stiff bed,
hundred-pound curtain,
hiding the strands that trail, fog
sprung from apertures.
2.
While I wait for the stem to clear the mirror,
wait for the fingernails, hair that travels
the top of the calves to grow.
To shave, and bloat a pillowcase with it—
haunt a neck with looming hank of hair—
hair that plumes where we’d as soon
be winged. To pare a troublesome nose,
turn sterner, a taller cheekbone—
advantage in contrast, a strike
against creatures that wait, that pace
and pose in the washroom, pace
under fat heaps of steam.
-2005
