for Barbara Browning
That poet is a cyborg. His machine
runs on blood and swarms inside cowry shells.
That poet is a vulture in drag
between the living and the dead.
He never sleeps on water
and he dreams inside everyone who touches him.
He’s a cyborg. Maybe the iron
in his articulations is similar to the little bones
inside cherries, to the clanking of flowers
as they close their gates at night over aphids
and the latex bodies of interstellar pollen.
He’s on fire. That poet is an indeterminate juju
at the intersection of the dissection
of your hemispheres. The poet, not that one, is
a dishrag wrapped around a sponge. He worships
a quince. He is the subtle side of subversion.
In other words, always the other word
that defies definition, a perverted antonym.
Don’t even try to out house his infectious rhythm.
He carries madness in his penis. Biolysis.
He’s his own father. His head should be castrated,
his hair fed to the silverfish and the monkey
parked outside the door to the temple at Tirupati.
His wig is pregnant. His clitoris a clothespin.
His testicles are ovaries. His nipples prostate glands.
Don’t feed him anything but roosters, dog, and goat.
His photo is a pun on an enemy’s foot.
His rainbow is a serpent. His passion
is a raven. His shield is Achilles’ heel.
If you possess him his liquid will quickly
flow into the ocean. He vacations in Xanadu.
If you dance in his anus the lights will go out.
If you suck his prosthesis he’ll lisp.
