I like to bury my mouth

in my scarf so I can hum

with abandon

and whisper awful things

amid an unknowing public.

The apple stem hits my teeth

as I hungrily gnash at the flesh

and I imagine tasting other hands

that handled the apple before I did;

I didn’t bother washing it, just the

almost-acceptable polish-on-the-pants

technique, which leaves all the germs

yet a nice shiny denim glow.

I had the good sense to pull my hair back

or I’d be eating that too.

My curls taste a little like old showgirl,

with a dalliance of muppets.

My kisses taste of golden delicious

and chocolate. With a dash of mania.

I ate through to the seeds.

I look at the seeds, the possibilities,

the knowledge of fruit and skin

and all Eden held before we mucked it up.

I toss the whole core in the trash.

I unwrap another kiss.

The day was so long,

it took two and a half days

to finish it.

I discovered

sidewalks laugh

when you trip and

the house belly dances

late at night,

to the tune of white noise.

I’m rumbling sympathetically

in deep places like a bulldozer

aiming low, heavy, and strong.

There are pieces of me

on the moon

and on the mountain

and floating with salt in the sea.

I’m never complete

because I have bits of fluff

feathering birds’ nests

and stuck inside the railing

of a high-rise fire escape.

I search horizons for colors

to add to my fading eyes.

I listen intently to wind

to learn the oldest songs.

There are memories of me

in a displaced book and

foraging fingers.

I am nowhere special

and no one to hold tightly.

My tethers are loose

and I will fly most quietly.

A slide down an ordinary vine

into deep gardens of time and light.

‘What Is’ is not a contradiction

to what is imagined or never was;

it is in Being that a heart takes

the journey a soul cannot do alone,

so it is better with two.

A rising force making flesh

as irrelevant as paper is fleeting.