the trouble begins 

with poetry as machine.

from the inside of this whale,

i woke up on a surgeon’s table,

the moon foggy like childhood. 

while alive, we were just

one of those things that happened 

from time to time.

a castle made of skin

in the brain of a nimbus.

the compass will not encompass us,

Arroyo says, whose name stands for water.

reading The Sacraments of Desire, 

it looked like someone had killed a mosquito 

on the corner of a page, & below it:

perhaps some spilled Hypnotiq.

they chose the right place to do it,

where the words read:

My dearest, you are a green leaf torn

by your own hands because of love.

I could not tell you not to do it,

just as I cannot tell the wind or lightning 

not to damage a tree.

ripped lips

grow back again.

but the net between my feet 

and my life is no longer there.