1.
could it it could could it it could could it it could
go on forever this way that’s not
true it could go on forever this way
even if which it shouldn’t it should
not cling
film a voice gets all over
itself its offered embrace it offers its
spleen and embrace
that the year may never begin. that the year, a body both
master and pet, a year,
the body-mastery, a pet name,
project intended and intended.
oh my garden!
I played a trick on you
told you you should grow that you were asked for that you asked for
this
dedicatory epistle: dear
you, it’s I, your
dreadfulest, dear
friends you’ll find my face
even if I
should have to remove it leave it
streaming at your feet, even
if I should rub it against your eyes
away
could it it could could it it could
father
be yours
2.
my my my
when I fell I fell
for your latex syntax and tax proposal
you were a sugar
you were like you could
like you could
value nothing nor value
a cock like a sugar
a cock like a spade
dig it yes daddy
I
do
3.
I was you said
of very little use and small powers,
arcing deflected surf-light. I touched nothing.
So
desire: a corpse in the drain,
beyond blame, discoloring rain.
4.
The drag of history felt as guilt as debt gelds flight.
A gilded doubt is history as debt is guilt and a drag.
Historically doubt as a dab of gall is a gilded dildo,
As history is guilt and the gall all of it.
5.
Picture the moments before you wake. Tunnels cramped and drawn, corrected bones, the battery light of expectation.
One theory of pain is it’s obvious, obviates theory, as in you’re in it or you’re not. Imagine a pain.
Wake in imagined pain, in imagery: damp light, centimeters of birds dredging blues. What's a reason to move? Pain is, if moving might remove it. It may, you do, maybe.
How well do you care for yourself? If you were a dog, how would you judge the master which is you? Poorly I am afraid.
Imagine eating. Imagine being eaten: that the matter with you be converted into energy, into continuing life. That is the theory, the hope of being eaten. That much is obvious.
Seeing scar tissue you guess at the wound.
6.
A word is a wound on time. Grief, a pleat. It eats
light abdicates and festers: the poem. I tell you:
The birch burst like wheel spokes
through a snowed-in closeness.
Impossibility sees I am like this
to you that I would like to be like this
to you
7.
Under you now I am leaden and heavy
and everyone wants my money. My money
is not enough money. What little there is
I spend unwisely. I a debtor
am and walk with a debtor’s signature
gait, extending his guaranteed hand:
Prussian blue PVCA. I make silence
in my free time of varied density and weight
though to write also is faulty accounting.
We’re mortgaged by words
which extend themselves not
in a gesture of faith, but because they know
in heaven all bills get paid. Someone would eat
your pain I say though I say neither I nor pay.
The year the body never began I told you
forever it could go on this way.
8.
In conclusion it’s not my job
to make anyone feel
worse about things.
Everyone has their own portion
of fear and grief to tend without
being dumped on by me.
It may be you are a person
to whom the wealth of life
is obvious, a person
who appreciates. It may be
you say I trust I will have
had been such.
9.
Under you the ledger shut
and let me not evade you
Under you the sugar stirs my hand
and let me not by grace evade you
Under you the streets continue
and let me not by grace alone continue to evade you
Under you the reengineered eye of
let me not evade
Under you staying watered collecting waste in small bags
Seconds before we emerge from the tunnel, a man to my right crosses
himself. We are vaulted suddenly onto a bridge, the skyline extending
like a tape measure from its casing. I study first the northbound view and
then the south, wondering which if either has the future hid in it.
Under you—could it—Yours,—could it—and saying not one word of my love
James Loop is a poet living in New York City. His work has appeared in Brooklyn Rail, Lambda Literary, Prelude, and elsewhere.