How the Body Sleeps

i knew to call it suspect the night i awoke to the wind

moseying up my hollows

breath blue on my collarbone


it's curious my body

weeping

welcomed it at her doorstep

just for the night

she said

just for


it isn't the treachery that troubles me

but how does my body sleep

knowing the wind will whisper away her fingers knowing

the wind rising off concrete

rising off clotheslines

rising off cooked meat


i remember when i learned the word altar

the stress on the inclusive

the ending black and impressionable

a echoing a in symmetry that can only be stomached by god

and other things

we worship


it's curious the wind's careful swigs of my skin

of my forearms my larynx the cast of my jawbone

who knew the body so soft

could harden in dreams

as though cast in iron

that flickers

as it dries


i flicker in sleep

the way blood gets brighter in water

as though saying 'this

is where i come from'