us, in water & disintegrations of by brooke schifano
Us, In Water
Remember when we burnt the book? that summer we
spent all day running in the sand and in the ocean, later
we’d find pieces of sea plant in our suits
and our hair
winged creature
butterfly/bat
human being
in the water, the kelp looked like us
or like brown hair on blue, in shadow
in the morning we drank tea and grape juice, walked
over the train trestle where you always said those things
lagoons and inlets on the edges. the spaces are lakes
in addition to us, there was little but you
the book was about discovery and about growing
older and we burnt it by the house next door where no one lived
put out the fire and forgot. all the pages and the dust they made
salt water streaks in our hair
see: dead cockroach spaceman two couples lying down
the trestle above the lagoon with the sea gulls
and the people at night sleeping in trees and in
carts. we’d walk across with our feet split even, waiting
for land or
air, water
here are their legs and arms heads thrown back doing a dance
see: two girls dancing pelvic bone angry pigs w/ teeth
we’d find pieces of it
in our suits and hair
in one: woman w/ woman
little girl and sheep dog
shadow man’s head
house on fire
this is the man
with the funny face, tell me
it looks like
us, like
a piece of snakeskin
spaceman with helmet
we
turned red sun-pinked legs arms
on the grass until our skin cracked our eyes burnt, til
clouds covered the bright spot and
us
Disintegrations of
I’m tiled green, yellow wallpapered
trace the lines with the tip
of a finger feel
dust composed of skin cells and us
he says he’d cast a line to the earth
all the sand that holds in those central valley trees
I’m the panels on the roof that catch the sun
and make it
electric
he wants to be an astronaut
says the word moon like something
closer
sides and a body and bits
of human in it. In me
when you drove away
I ran after
I’m
my mother’s and grand
mother’s and yours
dust calloused, trees
in rows and rows (then)
I put on the boots and we flooded the earth
he says, once he gets there, he’ll cast us
a line and pull up
the big fish
it’s made of the
skin on my heels, I
wish you could smell
what the dust does in June, how
the birds land on the wires
you said you were afraid
of the water
of the earth
where the sand burs
dig
here, where the big fish
swim