Fuchsia
I’m stuffing fuchsia blossoms down my throat
one by one like sugary taffy
they’re sticking to the roof of my mouth
that sticks to my teeth
that stick to the pollen on the flowers
that glides down my throat and threads beads of saliva
gliding down into my esophagus and shattering
until I retch and cough all the flowers into the pavement
outside a little wooden house
the wood is dark, dark dark dark
against a pastel sort of clay sort of backdrop
it looks so smooth
I want to run my hands through the branches
I want to sweep back night’s hair like a girl
and kiss her on the moonlit cheek
and press her against the wood of the house
and —
the light goes on in the front right room
lights going on like an eye opening
the curtain dips aside like a shy eyelid then —
she flutters shut
my face is stained fuchsia and my elbows are grey like clay and I look around and
I’m naked
bleeding fuchsia blood from the face and staring at the house
staring
back
there are fuchsia lipstick prints on the windows
the mist of disappearing breath
a boy smashes the window and runs out
her eye is crying out soft firelight and I go inside and —
she’s laying peacefully in a grave wedged into the floor
blood seeping out between her legs
that melts into the earth
that melts into a soft palpitating orange core of earth
everything melts into movement even stone but —
not her
she’s perfectly still and the fuchsia is muted and she’s turning the color of the trees
the trees that I sweep aside tearing off the mountain’s hair until she cries out
and moans
pulling up the needles of clothes and ripping
off the protection
setting bareness to the stone and
pulling out a lighter and
setting fire to the clay that doesn’t catch until
it does and
she’s being burned body naked on fire mountain moving
undulating bareness of bone and rock breaking
all the fuchsia flowers wither all the clay turns orange
until —
I’m running up the mountain with a torch
I’m red streaks and orange and pink and I’m putting my fingers
to the pulsepoints of the earth
checking —
is she still there
I lift my wrist to my lips and bite
the pulse point of my palm and
there’s the terrace on the mountain
the earthly balcony where I go to step into the air
until I’m falling and shattering on fire-hot trees that are made of stone
the forest is petrified and I’m collecting the pieces of myself
as I look at all the trees
dancers
they were dancing a moment ago
now they leap back
onto their pedestals
now they are stone
and I touch them and finish sculpting myself
and then I unclench my fist
and let the last fuchsia flowers fall
and then —
I’ve stopped dancing too
