Lara Candland I Five Poems

1.
      view at muley point

      from up here:

      a bone
      dessicated
      by sun
     
      calcified
      clean
      by carrion

 

 

2.

it’s as if you never laughed                                                  last red

you never--                                                                          coke machine

shook                                                                                   i ever saw

my bottle                                                                              in a gas

of coke                                                                                 station

that day                                                                                around

as a practical joke                                                                nogales

as if forgiveness                                                                   as if you never laughed

reformed & bubbled                                                              laughed

back into its thick                                                                  when the

green sprite glass                                                                 coke

& the soda cap re-                                                                sprayed

pleated itself                                                                         up my nose

around the lip &                                                                    when we sat

the bottle flew                                                                       on a peeling

from my hand                                                                       metal mirage

back into the                                                                         at the bus stop

3.

       they found

our two skeletons

wound up

together

rib caught

on rib

caught on rib rib rib

&

they called us lovers

because they saw

your fist

balled up

in my chest

in the place

my heart had lived--

the simulacrum

of my heart--

or--

you were pulling

my heart out

from between my ribs

or--

it was a double

homicide--

or-- you were

massaging

my worn out muscle

to make it pump again

that one day when i died--

& to make my flesh plump up

again & my skin wet again

        *

       too many skeletons

clacked away on keyboards--

i thought you were as adorable

as a sugar skull

when we met

it’s why

it’s why

*

it is

not

good

for a man

to be alone

so this is why

when the carrion

finished your flesh

i sucked every bone clean

on your bone clean frame--

hot white desert dry.

 

4.

       we look

in each others’ mirrors

& see where we will end up:

in this joint,

everyone ends up

laid out cold

on a marble slab.

our temples decay

& falter

*

our skeletons keep writing

about how the snake

will slither from it’s skin

& we will come upon

the discarded skin one day

& lay it in the empty

picnic basket

right after

a beautiful day

lays her body down across

the valley

or leans over the bowl

of pears waiting on the counter

to examine their flush--

blushing red on one side--

the core of fruit

you left on the lawn

last october

shows up again deep in grass

when the snow melts.

 

5.

this picture of me. grand canyon. 1975. i am eight. i am browner than a squirrel with a nut in her cheek & my hair is snot green from the chlorine in the pools & my mouth is full of too big, clambering teeth, full of high pine needles & binoculars & stars and the high dark society of night.  me & five siblings, later that week, roll home like six acorns on our father’s open palm,  & the back of the wood-paneled caprice classic station wagon. four & a half pairs of happy sneakers tumbling in the dryer.  the canyon lays out far & wide & behind us.  how many bones & teeth are pressed into her declivities? 

i didn’t know then:  how many former bodies it took to build us.