six poems

KP Kaszubowski

On Mondays the Sunriselady takes a break

To watch you die

Not to cause it

It can’t be caused

And just as there are no more secrets to tell in the shadows of the valley of the

dead

She carries two large melons for the journey

There are two

ships facing the wrong way

But you won’t be taking the sea

so Death is an ornament for the roots

O wrong silence

She woke you from dreams of tropical cyclones

She has too little

ground herself

and You have plenty to go down

Open mouthed

for good emergency

Kindred fruit of life and memory ferment together

She arrived with hair cut close to her skin

Now her hair is long and dark

You have too little escape Words ornament your dying like stored

grist to resist the long gloss of winter

With her she brought a wardrobe

of messages for the end

If you refuse the death you will be read as many

limbs of the same instructions as you need Each floor down a new monster

who mothers

each floor

Shoulders for a new bird and Hands for a

new blade

When we descend

It is clear

The roots of you

talk to the roots of me

These roots hold jury Pool the warm phlegm of Us

though you have been told of a sickness incurable

It is clear Apples

have a core

Roots miter escape from love

She

reminds you of shared body

Twice a day the light hits you the same

She watches you and though she is not allowed to guide you Her

twilight nods to the right

and so to the right you kick your feet

We tell the other person to choose where we’ll live next

there is one thing left on my list before children

I require Paris

I require Mary Magdalene’s skull

to cry in her grotto in the South of France to light a candle for myself

and whomever else I think of next

for the children of the mudslide

for the people of Poland

for the man I passed who confessed to me

I am grateful for this medication that is working

I am bleeding naturally again

though the root cause of the issue has not been addressed

though no one is sure of the root cause

of my body so disconnected from its nature

still my cycle does not harmonize with the moon

or anything I need to do

I want to live where I allow myself to be moved

which should not be mistaken for wanting to move where I am allowed to live

I found a stone that is alien to our earth

I asked it to do what it needs to do

to bring me all the love and support I need

but nothing is changing worlds are moving

I require so many people in one body

I asked my husband if he’d be upset if I became Catholic

and not just for the gilded tangibility of it

not just for the surrender

not just because Mary Lou Williams created “St. Martin de Porres” after she was so moved to convert

not just because these hormonal swells and collapses create a frequency of catharsis that I cannot maintain

unless a child or a divine work is produced

what is this habit of commitment?

I hate how often I have to quit the smallest things

I want what happens when you see the same people

in frequence in presence of the same people

it’s not that I want to be a nun

just that I’d like to live in a monastery inside the Île de la Cité

do I have to build everything I want for myself?

or, do I want to build everything myself?

somewhere to be like not having to worry about breakfast

a water source

and birds to talk to

a husband to complain about

when my body denies its orders

maybe children for the wildness

noise canceling headphones for their father

I like the loudness of many people myself

I’m not allowed to forget the best parts of me with you around

I remember the name of the James River only because it does not rhyme with other

rivers I’ve been drunk on. My first 44 thoughts from bed this morning

remind me of how cruel I can be. To my body: so flat against the floor, no melody.

What narratives I tell this self when limited to just 44 moments of shitmouth!

I am a fungus person— far from G-d!

I need a hand. Would you offer me the lost times where I was a kind

rabbit slipping under the fence to find you good things?

Please. Will you remind me of the times I gave you the blue bowl,

the only one I liked at all? It occurs to me that all of my friends (yes, you)

could be proof I am Virtue Herself. Look at you, all of you avatars of grace.

Wearing shorts in March! Cold wind up your sleeves as you wave

across the river James to me. I offer you the time

I was a Total BitchTM and you swat it away.

I could see that my friends (yes, you, yes) are reasons to believe I am mushroom joy.

Millenia rosy! Under the soil and all about

popping up,

up everywhere

about us

all. I am world. La la!

I am the green jello salad that someone (was it you?) said should be made

with cottage cheese and we just kept up the joke! Ha ha!

Don’t mind me: I am the bright bursts of mandarin oranges from the can!

La LA! You laugh with me as we pulley-system the blue bowl

back and forth across the James. Just look at us! The heart-pumps of G-d.

I'm moving somewhere that holds no memory for me.

Imagine pain as temporary

The pain of not

knowing how long temporary is floods in

And moaning could mean any one of a million

things

This: I can't remember what

I've said to whom

Or, if I have damned myself

I hated being drunk

But I loved getting

there A clear sky can still be

A waste of

space

They say: moaning deepens

the sense that I'm done

The last

time I flew

My sweat smelled like my

gone grandmother's

I've never seen a

ghost

Though I believe they haunt

Hoping to finish business

Sooner rather than later

Too many people

remember more about me than I do

While I've lived here

My friends

have a different friendship with me than the one I

have with them

I'm not often the

person I'm talking to

And I

could talk for endlessnesses

Even at a

long distance

The first to show up, the last to leave.

I move so fast my lamentations are a music video / I am all the backup dancers

on the stage / at once / all of me dressed in this bitter grief / as costume / I am

also the tech team / also the whole stage crew / I fly in these crystal

chandeliers / the size of God's clear and weeping teeth

Don't tell me we lived a good life together / she's not breathing.

Equal and opposite / I intend a poison so long lasting and if I

couldn't get away from her death / at least I could take over.

When I was an oil spill / I was the most at-home / what an oil spill I am, I'd

say / I sizzled as an oil spill / the crowd loved all of me / all my organs flat

against the water / slapping / pinned to the world / I move so fast around the

globe! / I am expressed as all the backup dancers in the world / on one stage at

once! / and we are sobbing in song!

And someone had to die for this treat / didn't you also sense the whole world

grieving over the same thing / at once / only a few years ago? / didn't you

already know that the same sludge was snapping back? / maybe you're still in

the parts of the world I remain / covering.

So I rock my belly over one hip / over the other / a little bit slower this time /

a little bit slower this time / my ankles into the ground / a finalist of loss.