Alice Miller

Dupilicity of our carefully cultivated fraudulence:

Governor Grey pours tea. 

His cufflinks are so European! 

I have a tenderness that quite resembles the colonies. 

I have an Off switch and an Over switch

and I am stuck between the light

and the light and the light.  Governor, why

are the hallways always so wet?  I am carefully

scrubbing down my ambulance; I am in love

with my Renault interior, with the speech that never

fails to block the gap between our chin and cheeks. 

You want to go to Tanzania but I want to stay

and smoke around these future-looking graves.

Let’s divide our breath into segments

and eat animals only from the ground.

We must be semi-retarded to be here.

Things are becoming flood-prone.  But I am crazy        

about this city, its muzzle all over me and

all I can do is lick and lick the rocks

I’ve brought.  I see the next car and out the corner

of my eye it takes off into the underworld.  When you

put your toes in the sand

I can feel it in your breeches.  When I put

my toes in the soil I want to

blow someone’s head off.  D’you want to come

with me to the goldfield?  And if I bring my thermos

and if I fill it full of mud,

darling, will you bring your fear of flying?

You are not connected

D’you think you could wipe this smudge

of the world off me?  I can’t seem

to get it out by myself.  I open my mouth

and out spills three needles and the entire contents

of our laundry.  I watch you cough up my

peanut butter jars, stains and saliva

dripping down your chin.  How many words

d’you reckon I’d need to translate

this kitchen epiphany?  To rip up

this intricacy of font that incessantly pours

from my lips?  I stutter – you know, right,

that my pronouns are fucked, badly

concealed around you, me, him; watch behind

us is all I’m saying; all I’m

saying is the lake’s inside your sneakers and

all you’re saying is a bleeding variation

on song.  There’s a bridge coated in moss blessed

with disuse and your cat patrols it while my mouse

on the carpet gets drunk.  We’re hidden

where she can’t smell us.  We are knowingly coated

in methylated essence.  There’s a bridge

smothered in solder and it leads

to the folds of my stomach the hair around my

eyes and for each second we’re here

there’s that damn flicker noise, the stammer of

a mind, trying.