Yumi Dineen Shiroma: Welcome to Connecticut, Land of Death and Rebirth

I had run through fields in white pants bleeding
from the eye I recalled as I ran through the field
in my white pants bleeding from the eye and you
walked beside me your briefcase your flannel your messenger bag

Your spontaneous face your spontaneous face your
spontaneous face where one won’t expect you are mine
in the field in the valley in the valley in the tunnel
spooled through your spatialized mind you are mine

as a tea-kettle whistles at the heat I love you
drinking my cold brew in the window as you walk
by and by and walk by and walk by in my cat’s eye
shade in your shade with the tassel in her ear I am yours
I run my virtual hand through her virtual hand

11:45 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. do yoga stare at trees, location:
trees. I grew so much this year your year gray
hairs an evening fishing for eels in the creek
a season overlays space the meeting of homogeneous
empty and messianic times where time informs our time
spent among any given spatial totality and you walk
by the window and

#thinking about #revenge again she shreds
the straw with my teeth the buttons done up
to the neck like you used to do again
the hand on my head the head-
stubble (oedipal, stacy suggests)

conference next slide none of the backs of the heads
look like you and a season overlays time like you in
cambridge a casaubon like dorothea
in rome a casaubon whose fits in the center
for rare books and special
collections prove non-fatal

the trick was throwing my phone in the compost moving
on with my life in my arms and I walk
ostentatiously past the window as you walk
by the window in my new vegan
leather freezing the air with my breath

gcal notification total knowledge project due
today you have executed your total knowledge project
with aplomb the crowd explodes tickertape and katy perry
songs for him the king of the total knowledge project

breaking a dish on my wrist I watch
from the kitchen your faithful wife and staunch
the blood with the tapestry she weaves night in night
out of my limited intellectual means with its warp
of fact with its weft of I feel like

You fucking moron don’t you know I’m in love, walking you
back and forth my fingers staining the window blocking the natural light
this high noon I still cough at the smoke and the smoke still smells
like you in my lungs bent over your total knowledge project
(sign on the door a girl in a dress reading OMEN)

I love you as a tea-kettle whistles at the heat
as a window won’t lock when the dust weeps in
she allows the pipes to freeze and burst, changes
the locks and you aren’t coming back
recognizing neither my face nor my name
I take the train

you once told me about your people their
parlors and names their inhibitions
how they questioned the wisdom
of classifying even the seemingly non-sexual
passions as libidinal

back in your stomping grounds welcome to connecticut
land of death and rebirth says the wizened
crone on the metro north stirring her coffee a yellow nail
a greek key cup a fleck of krispy kreme in the fates she thought
I would die before she saw rome she thought
she would die before she saw rome she thought
she would take you with me

I once told you about my people how they lacked
objects to organize their lives their fucking a figure
for interconnectedness a leftist poem writ
in my blood just for you the object arrives
with me and ends at last with me in the object-
narrative (you called my name and it was the name of the LORD)

holden will walk me to class the day I can’t
breathe because of my pollen allergy
because I’ve lost you because she’d lost you
sam would bring me a glass of wine in bed
as he walks by the window he walks
by the window he walks by the window you walk

I love you as you walk by the window and she loves you
as I love the pills she swallows with wine to draw
a circle of salt around my heart to keep you out
like a mouth loves a lost tooth drooling blood I love

the way that she loves the pizza delivery
man like the lost and found where he found her umbrella again
between the storm that cold summer day I left it again
again distracted by you

I saw her standing, drawing off her glove, standing contrapposto in her limited edition Doc Martens. I saw her standing in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I saw her standing before a red canvas, standing contrapposto. I said: She looks like the statue of Artemis. I desired to paint her as I would sketch a charcoal sketch of the statue of Artemis, I told her: You look like the statue of Artemis. We debated the merits of visual versus textual representation, their transparency, their potential for eloquent distortion, to reveal the truth of a truth that overwhelms truth with its canvas of red. I saw her stand.

I once told you about my people they were
prophets all, burned in the brain the prophet
who buries herself in new haven will rise from the earth
in 17 years reborn reborn in the mouth of 2013

your name in her mouth like a cut like a cut like I always got lost
in a city any city like the dreams of being naked or lost
in my city I always got lost in the wrong metaphor
like she always got lost in your spatialized mind in the
box house and metaphor and the train and the train
they claimed could only move one way