One day on the road
NYC, Tuesday 15 January 2008
For Bettina

his fingers writhe in my eye’s corner · try not to see the anxiety as the plane lifts off from Burlington · a fingernail cleans out what has accumulated below · observe what rises · you are belted in · and still see when you close your eyes · so I tear off the white and stop chewing · calcium wearing down teeth · then you raise your eyes // can you understand how it works you say just wave your right hand · I get stuck on my side of the turnstile · You walk away · look · something is missing · me // gently dry the scar that keeps opening stitches gone · seems parenthesis are lips frozen · leaving open for interpretation my wish to be photographed with Gertrude Stein’s cubist face on a rotund body · my smile met her mask // each night the heals of her boots wear through pavement resounding off wood · first skirt she has worn in years clinging against legs · green sparks against sheets try to catch them · if you hear their echoes · mouthwash splattered against a curb as the hollow is cleaned · my nose is too big in the mirror // the guards looked away not caring how close the candle burned down into her body · hand fallen off one light extinguished and a pool of brown pink wax at her feet which she can no longer see because her head has melted so really it is hardened against the cement floor · pale nude there seems not to have been a brain · the large channel burned along the wick · did she have hair? · a hand lies on the ground with another votive candle where a pulse would have been · am I torn to watch because he is a Swiss artist – one of the first in the New Museum? // photographs will help me remember the poem of the bottles and the names · all the names we have called them · the bowery bums at the feet of these white walls where art is hung · and we read poetry · membranes touching where Prada warms bowels // i hum “A Train” as we pass below the river heading up · the express taking us past whale bones and (food) chains and the a/partments of people writing // writing we tape voices repeating three times bound spelling // we both think the cheetah moved most sensuously as if she has become hybrid · fools mind wanting to categorize the exquisite corpse // the scroll fills the aisle and i imagine him taping the pages together then typing on pot or amphetamines or not · listen to him sing jazz // and my tongue burns from mocha chocolate too hot and chocolate so sweet and a chair so big I am Alice in Wonderland until someone asks where I got my boots and the brew turns to diesel and find myself realizing someone had been watching intently as my boots moved unaware · now they need new soles and heels · they were new when we went on the road · until we got lost in Brooklyn and walked to dumbo · and found branches below the bridge · this city is about walking along the foot of walls that resound what happens below · that we slept at all

(inspired by the exhibit “unmonumental” at the New Museum, N.Y.C., January 2008)