K.M. ENGLISH
OVEREXPOSED
Closing doors thumb in the keyhole
lock all windows. Float the porch
and watch there goes down the street,
front door a mouth agape. Tuck the chin
be a ball under its tongue. Some choices:
basement, closet (never the bathtub that altar)
get the blankets and drapery. Go on.
Table linen over the toes. Settle down
and pull the canopy of trees blessed canopy
blessed shade, waxy green stuff in the mouth
shut behind them. Nostrils plugged with dirt
and worms a perfect fit: now pack it down
under fingernails. Here’s where
you can really get creative—socks, vibrators,
pens and pencils, the produce will spoil
eventually, check the junk box in the hall.
Something will work. Twine for the legs, tighter,
thicker is better, cupped flesh stretched over the
ears squeeze finger to finger. With a fat needle
and wool seal the canal, ice the eyelids
invitation liquid in the throat.
| top |
*** ** ***
NOCTURNE
More signs of anything, sign
some choice…leaf…
attendant to endless small things: release
the coming of
world what given becomes
an expression of dark pushing dark, moon-
framed. At the center such
ordinary motion, amassed
heaps looking to turn. Do not mistake this…recollection
leaves shaking, what else
there is color in a mind and there is time
now hear them
stirring and farther
black to plum purple…a mandate by future
light by dark
open inside—come
air, swiftly containing. Dream long as glassed limbs dream
long as mercy
that is without
reflection, flush…flush, the frame of what is naked in
this rest we know so well.
| top |
*** ** ***
THE EDGE
When I say dead I mean universe
or bridge, one day driving the highway
dirt-streaked and ragged a man
heaving a large tire over the safety rail
he braced it with his body and
presumably it fell
down into the river. I was going fast,
it would have been unsafe to look
back and we all know what
turns into sea.
| top |
*** ** ***
NOCTURNE
Long
the shells fall in
imagine
sky in exile
as a seen we used
disabling light
the same word
(evidence)
a painted boy
sky
what the beast says aloud
lighting the light up
(but to the sky)
of the beast universe
and the universe stops standing in for
the movement
the long strokes
| top |
*** ** ***
IN A LASTING IMAGE
Ours of everything signals / a shadow to what was
available / this unconsumable sense / of still
* * *
when their sky opened red
when our sky opened red
when my sky open red
* * *
(as winter I was born by knife)
(also these particular hours before your birth)
It is simple feeling, shelled
I ought here say
(this thought in the hours before your birth)
winter /
white involute sky
| top |
*** ** ***
NOCTURNE
Into sea their ocean
eyes that we
tried
sleep
tried
lying in the dark back (was like blood)
as mapped
a conclusion
of hands
or expression (this free light)
(when i) close
now (i) don’t want anything
| top |
K.M. ENGLISH
K.M. English lives with her family in Sacramento, CA. She has worked in restaurants, gardens, academia, and New Orleans public schools. You can find recent poems in cream city review, Sycamore Review, Matter, Berkeley Poetry Review, and other places. She just completed her first poetry collection, WAVE SAYS.
To download a printable PDF version of this page, click here.
| top |
A Dozen Nothing 