2 out of 3

Okay I am posting two of the three for billy, I am still looking for the other one. Let me know what you think though I may delete this post in a few days.

While Watching Russian Films

Silos are waking in the sun
and the mother is pouring wine to the boys
watering it down with rainwater and you’ll never know
what is in the blue box drowning
with the father, waves first covering his fingers
then his wrists and it would be wonderful to die
like this, slowly. Children running on a beach
calling papa, papa and everything is more
than beautiful, it is lonely--
a boy’s cut lip, black hair slipping
deeper and deeper. The body grows
at the bottom of a river. Camera goes black
then to the mother
pouring wine and now you know
everything. It is simple to die.
To show dying. Do it slowly
like filling a cup.

Women are beautiful
or ugly and even the houses are sad
flooding the screen then disappearing to white.
And you want to be cold, to have love
even though your tongue would be blue
but truth does not matter, it’s obsolete
and here’s a quality you admire.

Generally there is no sex
but violins mate as if underwater
and these hums are lullabies for the fish
in plastic bags, breathing in, out.

Yet you always return to the silos.

----------------------

Hide

Deer wandered in my father’s store
on the backs of men; their tongues hanging
as hunters held their dripping heads
counted horns, unless it was a doe
then they’d stop, spread her legs, talk of tender meat
rest a tired hand on the inside of her thigh.

The first time I touched the fur of my body,
my fingers slipped easily into the folds.
I remembered the men, their dark coats, how a knife

removed the last bit of skin, sharp bend of bone.
Soon I would be hunted, the sweet smell
on my hands tracked and I would lie
like the doe, my eyes open

beautiful, almost life-like.