THEY ARE LEAVING YOU A MESSAGE
for Arda Collins
What they are trying to tell you
is you are wearing the wrong bra
for your shape and situation
This might not even be your life
and in the midst of my thinking
to tell you this a fruit fly
has begun to trail me through the house
as if I were its mother or as if
it were the other way around
and it always is and the house
is on fire at some point
in the simultaneity and I am leaving it
to buy all the things I do
and do not devour
READING IS BASICALLY IMPOSSIBLE
Reading is basically impossible
because of the song in my head
and the nails I have
painted bright yellow
and I would rather
be thinking of sex
with various people I know
and the Joy Division in my head
and the shape of the words
in the book is an image
and nothing more
and my cat
who is circling my body
at high volume
and turning the page
something in me
sees a nail and thinks
oh no this is poison
and a cloud sinks
the light from the room
and in any case I do not
care for literature
unless it leads to you
embracing me
with urgency
You throw
my book down
Dance dance dance
dance dance to the radio
You can hardly believe
I have ever been clothed
OVER
And this my sunny intrusion
into the fear my friend has
that the world will not end
She should not worry
so much and I should not
berate myself in the shower
I have to stop saying sorry
to the wet and sparkling air
Here is an end to this plant
and here an end to the sea
Every day I let my body out
this far and no further—
slight trespass for which
there is no fine
You’re fine I tell the friend
It’s almost over
where it is the world
we’re still in
Whole skies of clouds
have departed
without leaving
so much as a word
Here is what the world
will put an end to
Here’s what anyone
would love away
Heather Christle is the author of What Is Amazing, The Difficult Farm, and The Trees The Trees, which won the 2012 Believer Poetry Award. She lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, is the web editor of jubilat.