Tropic of Cancer

for Lawrence Stewen

On this shore, the insects scheme, sing
the hair along my body. I say I dream about

strolling where the moonlight hits the water
and disturbs it,

If thinking your own thoughts has never brought you love, is it so bad to let another think for you?

I saw Jim Jarmusch yesterday.

Previously on...

Chapter 1a: Converging

I was God’s favorite, once—enough
schoolgirl in me to make Mary
sweat. not a fall-from-grace, but something sweeter.
an unlit cigarette wedged between two
adolescent fingers; & the skin like

I suppose a meaningful conclusion I came to was that it's often fruitful to follow diversions and accidents, but that you have to create the conditions to experience them.

Jilly and I fought a lot when we were kids. When other folks tell me they never fought with their siblings, I think about all the circumstances in their childhood that would have made that a remotely

Tennis balls were always disgusting. That creep-crawly not-green not-quite-yellow felt that made my teeth grind and my spine twitch, always wet with dog slobber. And it never lost that toxic new car

HOOD

We jut Ma’at into our daily bread.
Turn mud into pyramid bricks,
shadows mapping the heavens.
We rise above the stars.
Invent language harmonious
with all creation.
Fight wars because

Gail is the name of the person telling this story. She thinks of herself as Gail instead of I.

Loretta Lynn
Coal Miner’s Daughter
11 songs, 29 minutes
1970

The place is too small, but we don’t care. I don’t care because I’ve always liked small spaces (if I were an animal, I’d be one with

I sometimes wish we were pufferfish. There are the general perks of being a marine creature: silky filament gills that gulp oxygen from water, flippers to whirl through the waves, eyes that open in

PROEMNAL

1.

On’s on.

Storm in summer so awed.

Storm in summer so the awning.

Gum rubber space slowing
to show me it’s one big skin
sweating and leaking into
all over me.

I don’t

This diner has been here since 1949 but I am sure that no one has ever looked as beautiful as you do sitting on these red vinyl seats. 

I painted my lips and fingers red the first time I was unfaithful. It was in college, with a girl with sharp orange hair who had a smile that said come. I never really liked her--she was arrogant and

THE LOOKOUT

A person looks out onto the ocean. The water does not look like it is moving. Is it a real ocean? How are we to decide? There is something small and very far away. The person cannot

When Rose leaves, she hands me a lamp and says, “I’m afraid it will break in the move.” She tosses a bag of Twizzlers into her Corolla. The backseat is piled with thrift store dresses and Doc Martens.

She focuses on efficient point accumulation: jam, 12 points.

The cage was located in the back and, technically speaking, was a separate store: enclosed by chain-link fences, it housed rows of metal shelves on which were stockpiled stacks of used books. The

Skincare for Trees

Take care of your skin she says, over the dinner table,
tracing lines on the table with thin long fingernails,                                                                 

1.

Maybe I’m an idiot, but those waves are
talking to me. They fall apart on the beach
then recoil, and the phytoplankton glow in
their recession. That’s where I think what
they’re saying is.

FARMHAND LONGS FOR LOVE FROM ABOVE

Thought regaling twilight with porch-grown ukulele melodies would suffice to lure somefowl over but since experience