⠀⠀⢀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠈⠙⢷⡄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⢀⠤⠾⣽⣻⡄⠑⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⢠⠞⣠⣄⣽⣯⡷⠢⠄⠀⠀⠀⢀ ⠘⣬⢁⣹⡁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠉⠉⠡⡍ ⠀⠈⠉⠁⠉⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ [recently sleepless, but writing again] counting my Renommierschmisses seeing the world through smoke, looking back at the future and turning my eye blind to the past, nomadize between post-industrial memory: par fumée, the city-forest-scented, the tree bark growing over the skin of my hands "like a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats their folly." //GYRFALCON In the moonless night, my eyes see all — My eyes feel Venus rise, the snow-flower wilt, They smell the the dirt gathered under your fingernails: the ones that dared to sink too deep into the mouth of the Earth. Over tomorrow, I spread my wings — I tell the wind I have grown fond of lies, Your lips will taste most beautifully when you have lied. The east wind sighs into my mouth, for my gentle disobedience. My grip is iron-claw, I forever hold the pain written into my quills, Written in dark ink from that store on the corner, From that dark place in our hearts. I come at your drunk-hour-call, The bloodstream of the city at hour tongue, And my name forgotten in the flow, lost between waves. I laugh for you, with that sadness you must have known before me. You are a falconry glove resting black against the hand, Rub beeswax on my lip, let me taste the filth of every other gyrfalcon that you’ve let perch there. I’ll sit docile in this hand. For this hand, smelling like what the dark things smell like, I’ll drop my flight feathers, hold them between your fingers. In all the places they loved to touch me most, I’ll stand naked of my down. My eyes see All — The shudder running through my legs, As my muscles spasm in rhythm with the pain. And I’ll stand, legs wet and blood running down my thigh. & I’ve been a hundred thousand different mouths; paper and cotton, and plastic gag stuffed; teeth glowing in the sun, and teeth rotten away from their bleeding gums. I’ve been smiles and I’ve been swallowed tears, salty-sweet on my tongue. I’ve been the ever-promise and the lips that broke it. I’ve been real. I’ve reflected sunlight, quivered, I’ve settled as dust over windowsills looking out at the throat of the world. My name’s been stuck on the mouth of the wooden doorway, on doorstep and underneath it, where I sleep. I think my fears into reality; I speak them to me, I speak their names, and I cry when the world turns ugly-mouthed. I’ve existed through the days between. I swallow down, I swallow around. In the darkness and lonely, I am real. & I will find you in the preening corrosion-bend of your neck. There I will meet you. & Before the dust from our thousand-year-old war settled over the gnawed bones of the dead, our hate for each other was genuine in the light of day. Still, it faded around the edges at night; we were nyctalopic and hen-like in these ways—when the rooster crowed we would recoil from each other like oil and water.