June Wilson

i take them from the box
the box is my body, offals
symmetry between i
and the bird who builds an unlikely nest
tornadic rhythm, twigs
spittle coated bark clung to bark in metered irregular joints
hollow enjambments wood into protein strands
of brittle grass and little flecks of shit

dispossessed of wings
still fingers mine, these phalanxed vanes kissing wind
propagate their compositional surplus
slipping fascia against use-polished catgut uneven wicker
and i when i sit at this chair too long these objects strain
to tell me something
about ratio

i sit here not looking at the spirits
whose fingers are my notation
i am ashamed of my ambivalence for living

oh my skin lusts
strains at the logic of divinity
at the brutal tidiness of geometry in latin
spectral unraveling in these quarters
with cheap parquet flooring, why do i persist with poverty
where is it written? how to live
with the dissolution of will, with sex
that negates the pleasure of intellect

listening without want of transcription
i believed in the quiet proficiency of objects
their speculative sociality
their obscene gratuitous animations
their smudge and soil
their dinginess in satin and leather, their abandonment
of use-value aroused and shamed me
then, the wall opened

i saw an image burning with revelation
and popular desire
her bust decorated with two winking fat orchids
her animal asshole dripping a specific poison
unchartered horns sprouting like pale white milkmeat from her crown
hooves covered in the shit of other animals
coat gleaming with a precious music
and the music called out the names of the other animals

i felt the bright shock of desire
i wanted feminine glossolalia
plosive sound, inexhaustible procession from my throat
i wanted the birth of rage
against the shame of servitude and
corporeal determinism

sound is unremitting
i am avian bone fastened with wire

in the riot of musculature
i sought unfamiliar poses
what is the common subjectivity of sex ?
when i learned touch
my body returned with all the thickness of a stranger
not dissimilar to the obvious sentience of a tree
language primarily became movement
gesture not representation             actual kinesthesia
it begged a supine question
fetid child of my flesh
i held a tacit ceremony
pious tablature meridian blanket
fiber with no rhyme
neck prone to expose my breath
rising twin horses tunnel the waxy night
like us all i wanted to be loved
so my life became a series of punishments
the poses recur again and again
haruspicy of my shoulder, breast, rib, ass, cunt, and heel

i see a blank spot
in language & that’s how
i know i’ve been ill

i miss the sun on me
but if i can’t have that
i’ll take the red veins of her eyes
& tears

there’s a word for that
she taught me
last night. the only essence
i can speak of is
we’ve got a grief inside us
she passes over it again
& again printing

tinto with a spoon she teaches me
& remember how i stitched that first night
we met. i’m lucky for the stitch
ma gave me that eternal metaphor

know her disappearance
is always political. we stitch
back into memory. catch up
to the ones who clothed

me & her & us

tonight she asks me to watch
her thread the eye cuz sometimes
to go anywhere it needs
that other looking. i’m
always saying things are thread

june wilson lives in chicago. she does poetry & performance art with friends & sometimes enemies.