The Drum and the Violin; Naseeb; Centipedes and Other Childhood Demons | Cathexis Northwest Press

The Drum and the Violin

What drumming called
my curves to your bamboo hands?
What fissures in oblivion 
entranced our lineages
to lay down?
Here. Now. Semi-solid. 
Between midnight
poltergeists. String accompanists. 
Pocketing shooting stars. 
What thickness is
stretched translucent
over steel frames?

I dare you to strike
me with the softest
part of your open palm. 

Dha Dhin Dhin Dha
Dha Dhin Dhin Dha
Dha Tin Tin Ta
Ta Dhin Dhin Dha

I promise
I’ll preserve
your drying hides
with my cries. 

And accept
there will be more. 
More rhythm.
More surface.
More out of sync
lovers with bowstrings
snapped in half.
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Naseeb

I collect
my destiny:
fragments of
misplaced earth
and sky.

I collect 
a conspiracy:
skin and
carcass
of beings 
with deeper roots
than I've known.

I collect 
love known:
I squeeze
the shells of
severed synthesis
wondering how
eternal
their watering.

I collect 
my wake:
entrails of tactile
teachings
always both. 
Both supple
and shriveled.
Both soft belly
and hardened
magma cover.

I collect 
the bark of trees
in limbo, begging
release.
I become
a taxidermist
and revive their
life with my hands.

Understanding
my fate
is to break down and
apart
to fall
lose my way
scrape and bruise
as I tumble
be torn
from everything
I know as home --
be a lesson
in my undoing.

I am less and lighter
than tree bark;
dangling in mid-air
will soon make way
for descent. 
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Centipedes and Other Childhood Demons

I don't have to dig 
for these secrets;  
they wedge themselves 
into damp cracks 
beside me. 

This festering nursery 
for poems; 
so far from the sun 
I forget grace 
has many forms.  

I steady the weight 
of this world 
across 100 legs, 
brace witness against 
the most repulsive touch. 
His predatory fangs 
lift and seize. 
Slow poison 
quickening her 
nervous system for  
a lifetime.  

I am no longer 
the most frightening thing. 

Could I weave her 
a silk pillow to protect 
her from future nightmares? 
Or journey with her 
to warmer days? 
Where life exists 
eventually. 

I let drop  
the insect from my grip 
choose to gently starve until 
we can share a dream 
of solitude 
together. 
Or until 
I use phantom 
shadows to become 
a scorpion and avenge 
her childhood at last.  

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