He said, �what do you mean by binary code?� I said, �the flesh, stripped white.� He said, �huh,� and the movement moved and the planes took off & I remembered the love of binary codes, that in veins computers hold. He said, �binary? Like X�s and O�s� I said, �yeah, like along the edges� and I looked down over the slopes of my knees. He stared. I grabbed the verbs in the crevices of my thumb and palm. He said, �did you find love?� I said, �yes, in wrists.� He looked down at the mountain of knuckles I bent to remember, work & stopped. He said, �where do you start?� and the space between grew and I said, �I raked fields, extended garden rows.� He said, �who did you feed?� I said, �streams underneath, the callused, the healed.� He said, �do you pray?� I said, �once.� He expected more. I said, �can I dive through hands folded?� He said, �will that take us there?� In language economically tight, the conflict risen to meet my flesh and his air. I said, �juxtapositions,� and the shadows fled. He said, �of your rights?� I said, �breath doesn�t equal motion.� He said, �poetry?� I said, �not devotion.� If I can find my way in, I disappear in between the closeness of thighs. He said, �pressure?� I said, �yeah, the point of hands in prayer.� He said, �have you been seduced?� I saw poetry reclined seven inches from headboard to floor. He said, �have you been seduced?� I said, �the moisture is plaguing theses pages.� He said, �where is the center of the stage?� I held my hand down, blocking, roughly. I said, �hiding the way in?� She once said, I crawl into her open words, fingers first, to hands, to wrists as more & more sentences fall over my thighs, pushing my arm in to rise to shoulder, breaking over my face. He said, �excuse me,� as phrases dripped down my chin. He said, �poetry?� I said, �yeah, it�s hidden,� and I felt my red cavities pulse, and the organ tissue taste the blocked arteries and swollen glands. I said, �hmmm, poetry is beyond fingers and hands.� He said, �tell me a fantasy.� I said, �steampipe tied,� and I looked across the rusty nails, the measurement of air scales. He said, �who hangs?� I said, �she in motion, attached.� I saw the electrical sockets at my feet, nipples harden, ink complete. He said, �where, in that corner?� That dusty corner & wisps of her hair. I said, �that edge rough between ceiling and floor.� He said, �the mouse hole?� I said, �no, her w/hole, the trail to steam pipes.� He said, �wet dreams?� I said, �yes, of grates & chains. Sockets,� and my eyes duck-taped to the words and screws broken over the current. He said, �sockets, like electrical waves?� I said, �well pipe fitted wrists, fingertips topped in pvc & wires.� He said, �your desire?� I said, �the thermostats walled into begin.� He said, �you like to fuck in danger?� I said, �yes, worse than before.� He said, �what do you see?� I said, �beyond the pages of this black book?� and my muscles flexed. He said, �you ready to fight?� I said, �my nails are the metal edges of her hips.� He said, �her joints?� and I knew the coldness of open fields and wood fences. I said, �surrendered, I can�t see more than a page in a notebook.� He said, �disregarded words?� I said, �no, lost in clavicles & hollows of a stretched neck & the burnt, burrows of knees --- it�s hard weather.� Summer 04 |