Mary Kasimor

requiem for dog

at My FIRST communion the PEONIES

shot off

their HEADS for god in Glorious

red the Anti-ANTS’

sentiment IS no THING

but SCIENCE is the BODY of

CHRIST and not A force of Nature

but the sheer WHITE

SUN wears ME

encased in my natural Family

NEXT To THE china slippers

when I was OF age I found

my BODY fettered by Holiness

SO I sez TO JESUS Christ

there IS more to

THIS than WAXEN breaths OF PAST

dead I Miss

my grandfather and SOON my soul

WILL disappear into the flames

then THE ashes will SETTLE

into My HAIR

I used MY last SILVER dollar

and Salvation eludes EVEN

the ANTS in a piqué of Bloody

peonies that ARE Still

and related to another AUNT

who WAS never

on THE farm WHO lived with Old

DUST next to dogs and

god crocheting her FUTURE

WITHIN fortune and AN Impatient HEART

breaking NEXT to that Holy

photo of me

and DOG Bleeding ALL over my Breast

***

managing the chaos or on to plan b

amid the tension in tensile

form shedding the streets dumped

hucksters sharp darkness

the royal blood among the bees

and be-knots knotting intersections

shake lose the lights in failed language  

in the gestures

keeps everyone tight in intricate knots

the feet fake the moves

stars wrestle on the roofs like messiahs

flashing the earthy flatness

of wonders the words the words

the flash of words keep

the golden words shake the fiery moths

falling onto staged eclipses of shaken wing span

brain spun and myth

struck agog and angry and radiant

and lists of naming of

a flight of numbers like geese

of intensity of falling of something

more than the strokes of wheels

burnishing the calligraphic floor

and inverse echoes and fences of flies

in the calling of bodies and rocking the rocks

and throwing the rocks and the rocks fall

onto the final clinging humans clinging

to trees and bushes and editing

words of motion and form

and tunnels and clinging to a tree

of syllables cross stitched

and tied together

and smashed and bloody and thin

in the streets the blood

flowing from here and here

and 10 miles from the spot x marks

the endless row  houses and blue doors and

neighbors who don’t know

who don’t know who might

know but don’t want to know

when everything is in its place and placed

between the land and is in negative space

and pasted on the wind

and with the wireless horizon  

on to plan b

***

               butterflies passing through

identified as normal no things in flowers daughters

& sons spare the rod from guilt spliced & diced into

& my lot in life passing by the tomato gods stepped

on by roses of claw feet the fountains  bleeding

succession of humans passing on the fingerprint or

losing children on the way to the store found hidden

in radiant thoughts or elbow magnetic impulses or

magnets of the refrigerator with photos of identification

the loss of baby skin & I apologize for that forgetfulness

& what you like about yourself & photos of flies &

              pasta dishes & falling teeth from this we return

***

mother & pieces

what time was your Shape                          at birth

              as you broke into pieces                 & a Piece    

    slept in my bed           I named it after            You &

it took days            in the sun & the rain     Down by

        the river it        glinted like pain          my heart  

a speck         in the distance              the Man in the moon

           explained          a tangent                   of the film

only it was about            a Lemon         I didn’t understand

it until             now I don’t exist                         & if I do it is

       Because of the label    that I        wear Organic poet

        small sole               Space                                    person

         let me sleep       for hours                as Anonymous

                           ***

blank boxes

I wanted to hear light shake before the event

so I placed my heart

in my hunger

& it might have been home

but the myth started

as a sound & it braved the dark forests  

hidden waters &

it was in the middle

suspended moon shape

is chilly

without heat

& goddesses played for blood & drank in lost

directions & the myth became a dream

desired at night under

feathers & green cotton

a romantic brain

the fear of the body

before food was discovered

I looked out from my eyes & couldn’t

decide if I existed as an idea or skin

a lung ears intestines or

the taste of water

I revolted

from boundaries on my tongue

moving my shape along

a clumsy wet vegetable

a heart thrown

Into the river & past

the oceans

deeper than thought it proved

it was silence & I never heard myself

at the end when beginning

occurred I slept

with my arms holding onto a box of holes

***

***