overfull

On the point of my turn where the last finger of Hellen's hand slips
from the recessed corner of my eye and before me sits the sturdy
Stephen and slim Samantha stirs against him and am I ever going to be
free of you all? is it a rhythm of face and hands and every clutter another
bump and there are all conjoined and too many conjunctions clumping
my view with bodies and brought on by overcomfort and unlonely and
there again I have said too many things together but am I am or we and
where we are is whisped and warbled as if by bird tongues early morning
or with sunset blush and do not remind me of night where y/our bodies
press and push and every day I am less myself and more ourselves slipping
cell by cell into union and perversely I think harder on my single and self
filled with other hands and hearts and thoughts muddled and lapping the shores
of eachother like sand slipped out to sea one night and gone forever to the
fullness of the bottom, tied grain by grain to its old place and
tracked in currents

write the sounds of recovery

limned in hums, rushes, buzz-snaps sutured from spark and the stammer of
just-stilled strings shrouded in their own cast off so shifts the air hollow with

held-air, a sucklung full, a belly-gasp garbled in wound and, quieted, the
soft thud of a leaking held shut, teeth teaching discipline to chin mouth taught
and tongue tucked safely (for now) tucked behind rows and rows redundant
as sharks and as sharp

swallow, rattle, whimper, where once tracked toe and tread together there
now hums only a mechanical threat, a bird braced braked and brought to bear
without one foot foreign

trace where lines light limning launch and perhaps there will be no sounds this time
perhaps there will be finally quiet on the rattle planet
as one more gear goes smooth and stops

I have a mouthful of stars.

When I chew, they burn my tongue and break my teeth and I have learned to tolerate their touch on my tongue so I can maneuver them, burning just the necessary number of taste buds, out of the way of my food, to hold them back from my throat as I swallow.

When I speak they spill out and foam and froth about my words and melt them together or slag them entirely or set off catastrophic reactions that bust word into word and smashing fuse or fis all meanings imploding and exploding like popcorn and gushers and tents taken down at the end of a trip and when they are done my poor words limp and crawl or lumber in their misshapen forms into some semblance of what I had tried to say around the stars in my mouth about the stars in my mouth, which are even now spilling out and boiling ponds of spittle and burning grasslands and dry forests all across the american southwest and these stars in my mouth are terribly expensive and each is filled with diamonds and you cannot have them.