another short history of l.

christopher columbus discovered little
but the loyalty

of a worthwhile publicist;
this new world trembles

to begin

you sleep in sepia, a quilt
of undiscovered countries

& decades of land claim

there are nouns that we know
& those

that won't save us

you are peeling a lemon
down like an onion

forgive me

at the edge of the stone
is a mark

at the edge of the mark
is a daydream

what is it you wanted
to know

what paper eats away

(after Nina Berkhout


if you saw where I was now,
dissolved

I am conscious of every theory
of birds & tv,

alien craft throughout manitoba

she first stung by a bee
when she sixteen years old

got to sit out her gym class

the museum a new gathering place
for a more expensive quality of dust

where the molecule of you
is still paired w/

the molecule of me

somewhere still under glass

against which groups of toddlers
slap sticky small palms