I have avoided voiding
the brain. She is my heart
my center my crucible my
Jezebel. She betrays me.

Must you have her? I suppose
I could extract her through
nostril and bury her in
a canopic jar--though in Egypt

the brain was left to rot.
Perhaps I'll mummify mine
if we need part now-- pickle
and seal her in a boiled

Mason jar... as I would any
fruit past its prime. Any boon
near sour. Any thought all
through. If I can just keep my wits--

I'd give you a finger
honestly, or a kidney
if you truly needed one.

I'm thinking about donating
that same kidney to a stranger
so don't feel too singled out.

The finger I'd give you
just because you asked.
But you would never ask

me to rid myself of anything--
least of all myself--this is
the deceptive part of you

worthy of so much imagined
amputation. I give without
request. (Here comes the finger.)

Rid of feet, I'll have no meter
no tap dance to me. I'll be like

a clothespin with thighs. Or that
fertility stone, face and extremities

nubbish. I feel as if I'd swim better
although that goes against the logic

of fins. I do know if I ask you to
pour me coffee, to bring it over with

the crossword, I will expect the same
look I have always gotten. Ah, love.

End-machine: 1

In the photo with the airbrushed clavicles, she looks fourteenth
century. Corsets up-pushed the breast, almost to the shoulder.

To shoulder the burden of flesh, women were oddly masculine, with
curves compressed--an upholstered tube--the exposed bone just below

long necks: lost in swell. This is how collarbones go--under. Some
sharps I am cannot be extracted, only nestled, further interred.

Drowning becomes popular--how it does not distress. Later white-out,
botox. The script of a balisong (its unexpected emergence), less so.

for Richard Cook 7.15.2009

He taught like a cook.
I wanted to be him or his friend.
He gave me a book called Fires.
A book written in 1957.
About me.
He made me take plie by making plie look gooey.
One long drive home from New York discussing individual students' endless individual potentials.
His belief in.
His car broke down twice a month.
What did he do when his car broke down?
Was all that teaching too much? untakeable?
Did he dread what he did so well?
Would we do well to dread it?
Does it eat us?
If it does, should we mind?
Because I think I will try not to mind.
When I mind, I will let the car break down and go tomorrow.

Extract a face in strips. First, in kerosene, soak a face to clean it. Then, lemon lotion for four days, also a keen astringent. Painstakingly yet gently loosen the porous tarp from muscle below. Sever fascia where necessary. A face is ready for removal when it is no longer recognizable as face, when it looks like the face of a child unhad although others may have been. A scalpel will slit a hairline, prior to ear, echoing edge of jaw. From there, vertical slices are one, horizontal--an alternate choice. All depends on, afterwards, what is proposed as purpose for a face. If offed for someone else, let him designate direction. Should said burlesque proceed North to South or East to West, no matter. Conquest is assured, in a way, history. Yet, be meticulous as a cartographer. Thin continents, these skinny lingerie--pared away--reveal contours raw for our recovery.

I just want you to know, Danny
the navel is a difficulty for me.

My father said if I unbuttoned it
my ass would fall off, and it has

worried me always. I was connected to
my mother there before the telephone went

wireless. Plus, I have an inny.
If I dig it out I will seem

scooped--like ice cream, a melon, or a bad
reporter, a lazy or a slower, ethical one.

They took my mouth
they were always taking that
every other day I'd look to speak
and in the mirror just
a span of flesh
making of my chin an elbow
of my neck--a retracted fist

That's how I felt whenever
they took it away
but it only makes a thing
worse to deny its ability
to say, besides I could
always take a knife
and open another
mouth, the violent slit of which
is pretty easy to reproduce

even with the mirror's left hand

To spite my face I cut off its nose and placed it on a table. We like our eyes, and our mouths a bit, but that poor nose no one likes. Without its nose my head was clearer. But the gape of red just there at the center of my identity made others look away, and look back, and away. Back. I thought you wouldn't want to kiss me like that, all open, red, and con-cave instead of -vex, but you immediately took out a cotton swab and started gathering things to culture. The unobstructed view of my sinus was to you a revelation without horror. Newly fascinating. A trove. I cannot explain to others why I love you as I do.

only after I've plucked
my left eye like a strawberry
off its tangle do I stop
to think how it might get
awkward between us as I will
no longer be able to establish
distance by looking

probably I won't mind reminded
of how we used to bump when we
went into kiss knock teeth

To manufacture hunger you need
time and a stick and at the end
dangling like a fish from thread
a carrot. And the carrot withered
with a bitter beard. Hunger comes
when you would beat with the stick
your sister for half that old-man
carrot. The other half, the thread,
the stick, your own hand holding
its famine-machine a foot beyond
the other: these we call art.