Lauren Suchenski

Time moves slow,

times moves slow,

gathers up the edges of June and splatters them towards the rainy afterbubble-gurgle of
midnightnoon.
I sit. perched and gulping down huge chunks of fresh night air
watching the dust gather in this recycled room of old hunks of memoryflesh.
this is the place. this is the gathering space for all my holy artifacts of the artifice of life.
this is the cocoon for cornered, corrugated connections between me and my memories.
these four walls have safety knitted into their knobbled knees. this gravity collector keeps
my mass of matter momentarily manifested.
this bundle of burdenless housebones have aching joints and jolted points.
this room meets me in the middle and never stops heaving my secrets out the solid square
windows.

shh shh- silence the big bells of broken open meaningcatchers
let me listen to the sound of dust mites collecting what I have already given away.
no one is here except absolutely everything I am not.

at last, at last the words fit back into place
like placements of irreplaceable spaces.

Have I eaten

Have I eaten anything
in the past 9 minutes
that was not air, water, pesticide or pain?
Have I swallowed any part of my body
and have I reached out towards the Sun
in ancient, aching praise
half as much as
she is owed?

Have I ever robbed myself of radioactive nutrition
and have I known deeply enough
what it is to be eaten, what it is to be plucked, what it is to be a
mouthful of something meaningful?

What self-deprecating honesty will be enough
to honor the stalk that serves me
that I am served
that I someday become