Two Poems

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RITUAL 2: MIRROR

In the days of
enclosure anything

is a door. Each living
room pulsing
held in the forcefield of the
screen:     sitcoms (syndicated)

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sports non-stop
                              war  

in some houses
a large mirror
is placed
near the screen
which makes the windows
shimmer sharp like an artificial lake
and the residents
doze while the room
levitates 

But none of these
doors will take you
outside

we’re here
in holding
to be
kept safe

from the violence
we distributed

and forget the
hard pleasures—

sunrise broken open
against rowhome
roof matchbox town 

still and stretched
before us
yolked in
egg tempera

dripping with light
leaking it

like orange
juice slipping off
the edge of a table

now there is
no possible dawn 

and the terror
accretes
in our teeth     
        becoming
Music, Television,
and Film

HOLDING

that water-logged
feeling in the legs
as you ascend a rusty
platform climbing up
into the ashcan 

sky an airplane de-
constructing in mid-
air      neither winter
nor summer    just the
atmosphere holding

moisture and smoke as
some asshole
burns their leaves
in the distance

a light nosebleed
incandescent 
red on my blue
hand

and the deer who
seem to know
something

Symptom creep. I be-
come organized round
the superstitions
of sleep        a circle

of salt some crushed
Ambien to lead me back
down the stairs of

this psychic house
that exists everywhere
around the real
house metastasizing each

night I map its infinite
wings with my mind
and my mind
does not go

the river is on fire
and its weeping and
sweating is on our walls
they say don’t wipe it 
                  or–

it’ll get into the air
but we wipe    they’ll say
this is happening
because you let others’
feelings penetrate
your body but also, you
bc are a bitch   down 

towards the concrete 
slab level of reality the
stairs are burning

and above, 
they also
                    burn
I let the river
          inter-
  penetrate 
my          heart
and my liver
is dotted with
powdery white spots where
    once there was water
now there
is—

            not knowing

the house   and my
mind    my mind and
the house in the hours of not-being I
shepherd the mice
into the crawl space

they warn me to
be more shrewd and a 
little stingy 
don’t give too much
to experience 
and also to chew through
the water heater wiring

and down into
the lobby 

of the
bank that loaned us
all that money on
fake liquidity    awake under the smog 

   of pills   someone says
you’ll own nothing and
you will be happy 

and further down into the living room
where the eight-foot waves
lap at the bay window down

into the master suite 
a couple 
like us in 
bed both 
visited 
by ghosts 
all the while the stairs

burn and burn like
a masterpiece like
a poem which has only
ever been an argument

another level down
my foot mistakes
something skittering
for a roach, but it is a frog

and it asks me what does
it mean to own anything
at the end of property

what does it mean to
write poetry at the sunset
of literacy