New Colors

My mother is in my belly.By that I mean—

I talked to the late Grandpa Holmes one nightby the Willamette River tripping acidwhile Jacob’s knees buckled under PBRand molly on the wet stones.By that I mean—

Anna’s off in Francewhich is a place I can’t be sure exists becauseI’ve never been there.By that I mean—

Janet still wants to die every dayand one day she will winso I can’t touch this world full-on enough to call it homebut I will keep crashing here.By that I mean—

Life is a gentle explosion. Sometimes I meet peopleand our conversations drip down my chinlike overripe apricotsso I keep exploding gentlylittle by little every day.

When I was a kid my greatest talent was zoning outinto two adjacent mirrors and slipping into glass fractals ofmy head and my nose and my eye...I used to get down in the grassand smell the dirt so up there in my nose likeI don’t think I live up to that now.

I keep counting all the little beauties though.Each stain on a plate. Each butt in the gutter.They all had lips on them, you know.Sometimes two or three.I wonder how they knew each other.I wonder if they talked shop or swapped jokesor made deals about a coastal trip in June.

Can I swallow all of life?How much will there be?There’s all these new colors in my belly.I can’t see in there though.

Anna—are you in love out there?Is the wine really better?Do footsteps sound the same?

Janet—aren’t you glad you met me?Who gobbles candy in coffins?Do you walk by cold stony bodies of waterand name them after yourself in your mind?

I think I said to Grandpa Holmes—not in words but in telepathy—I only knew you through the mouth of my motherand she loved you like a cactus loves its flowerso stay with me a little longer til the peak dissolves.

What swallowed up Jacob that night by the river?(He’s okay now. I hear he’s a park ranger in Washingtonand has a beautiful kitchen.)

I think I swallowed my mother; she is in my belly.There’s all sorts of new colors in there I can’t see.

I am waiting for my water to break.