
hypnotism: to chamonix
i.
bleach blue and dripping, this town
does not speak but stands, hypnotic.
a dust-winged bus and a ten minute walk
have i been here before?
what elevation gets into your blood like this,
water breaking bubbles, frost in the soil
a language
where we don’t pronounce half the letters.
ii.
on sunday, my knees snap under
the crippling height
i heave rust out my guts
paint my genetics down a mountain
a stranger grips my shoulders and
tells me that it’s natural.
the train gets a headache french and cornflakes
and a bed under a window we drift under flight,
manifest vending machines and profit and sleep.
iii.
the peaks speak in dizzy longing
softly
when they know all the humans are asleep.
iv.
i don’t call anyone.
i witness something sacred and
hold it like an insect in my palm
v.
she says i can get a job here.
she sends me a link,
buys me wine in the spiderweb night lights.
and i think of all the homes i am collecting.
and i think of all the wonderful
and terrible
questions i get to answer.
and i think about the clumsy uphill sidewalks
and hungry burning height
and i feel so young that it could unearth me

deadwater
eye-deep in deadwater
i ungrow,
washed out in
splinters stakes and stutters
peach and prunes and fingers
silent in the twilight, lonely in the night sight
i retract here
retrace clamber
back and back again
there is no one here
to trap inside this birdhouse body
there is no one here to
lie about my life to
what is this,
to miss with such violence
to disappoint atlantis
to sleep in deadwater
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