Density
No one
lasts long
and they bleed
quite a bit
when people
find me
and pay
a lot
for the hollows
of their bones
to be
filled,
I don’t ask
if they’re sure
getting to me
is difficult,
I make it
a journey
and the request
itself
known to
very few,
and,
I’d think,
that of those
who do
most
wish they didn’t,
what I watch
and listen to
passed between
the detectives on my case
is that they are
at least
as mystified
as horrified
by what
I discovered
and hold
close,
as close
as any would
for something
this valuable,
believe me,
I have
the receipts,
and
as well-hidden
as I keep this,
I
am busy,
but,
have no idea
why people
keep asking,
as I said,
I don’t make it
my business
if they think
they’ll survive,
if they
take my spell,
my service, my
impossible, terrible
miracle
as a challenge
to try
and live through,
an absurdity
they have to pay
so, so,
so much for
in order
to see
if it is,
in fact,
possible,
but,
of course,
my service
is real,
the work
works,
and, frankly,
my dwelling
on the question of why
offers nothing
I wish to dwell on
for long,
I provide,
I profit,
and the pictures
keep drawing
the attention
you’d expect:
gore-ridden flesh folds,
odd angles
of muscle
at odds with
new edges of
bones, snapped,
jagged, splitting through
corners cut out of throats,
at the ends
of fingers,
piercing prints,
jig-sawing scalps
with fragments
of skull,
hair
soaked
atop mouths
like mines overflowing
with molars crushing
their own
mandibles,
cracked around
open screams,
melting
into gaps
where support
just
was,
then,
buckled
in,
making bodies
like fists
clenched too tightly,
furious, piercing sinew,
slashing sheaths,
opening
everything, nothing
about this
is pretty,
but,
my god,
the money,
you wouldn’t
believe it,
and, try
as I might,
people
keep finding me,
I update
the wait list
often,
but,
this
last one,
no username,
paid triple,
gave me
one hour
from the first line
on a server I hide,
with a pin
that he dropped,
which,
normally,
I would never
agree to,
ever,
I
choose the spot,
I
won’t have
my time pressed,
but,
triple,
and the location
was ideal
on paper,
our city
has no shortage of sewers
to dilute the meetings
and leavings
of my work,
and,
usually,
with an intersection of pipes
like the one
he shared with me,
I
can get away fine
before the process
begins,
so,
I got to the cross streets,
at 2 a.m.,
the pin
at a catch basin
under a drain cover
that I needed a grate hook
to lift,
climbed
halfway down,
pulled back
the cover,
then got to
the bottom,
and he
was already there,
in darkness
that couldn’t hide
just how young
he actually was,
the youngest
by far,
enough
to where I
paused,
a first,
but,
he brought out
his phone,
asked
if I was ready
for the transfer,
which was
more money
than I thought I’d ever,
ever
have,
so,
of course,
I opened
the firewall,
the numbers
cleared,
we
shook hands,
and I
unbuttoned
my shirt,
unlatched
the kevlar casing
around the tome
at my chest,
then,
took great care
and due time
to open,
then
level
the book’s spine
out in front of me,
turning to
the sixteenth page,
(he being
my sixteenth)
and brought
its uppermost edge
just under
my chin,
I whispered
the hex,
and the print
on the papyrus,
floated
up,
met the space
as a haze
directly
ahead
of my
eyes
as
a
haze,
dark and
quivering like
dropped ink in reverse,
then,
flew
right
at him,
but,
just before
contact,
the kid
yanked a cord
run through
his pants leg
that I
hadn’t seen,
its end splitting
three ways
to attach
to three pallets
he’d set over the three tunnels
I could leave through,
admitting
only one way out
for me:
the grate, too high
to get to
in a hurry,
I don’t know
how I didn’t drop
the most precious thing
that I’ll ever hold,
the echo
devastating,
freezing me
with his page,
now blank,
still open
within reach
of the kid
as his hands,
now as heavy
as osmium,
slammed the muck
moving by at a trickle
just ahead
of his face,
the kid’s
osseous self
struck with new density
like a life’s-worth of profit
paid in coinage
and
instantly
winnowed down
to points sharper than
grizzly claws,
and
breaking
into shards
on the concrete,
ripping veins, muscles,
stabbing out from the cave
where his skull
opened
around
his
eyes,
vision
gone afloat
in grey matter
jellied, exposed
to a night I felt more
than
any
other,
I’d never
seen it happen,
would never
consider
such a thing,
I knew
what this was,
what happened
to the other 15,
and everything
about how magic,
real magic
works
in hours
as lightless
as this one,
the ankle-
deep waste
turning a red
straddling black
beneath a moon
I had to
turn up to,
needing
to see
anything
else,
Luna,
waxing gibbous,
calcium-white,
short
of fullness,
oh, to not
be full
I told myself,
as I heard him
breathe
his last,
a slurping
suck of blood
around the splintered stockade
I’d delivered
inside of him,
the sound
magnified,
trumpeting off
the three pallets,
this trap
wasn’t permanent,
and my poems,
as a rule,
don’t touch work,
but,
he’d built this
just so,
meant it
like one
builds a text
steeped
with intent,
or opens
every effort
at facing,
then
grappling
with another,
and I
can’t say
what my
best poems mean,
what my best efforts
could be,
and I
would figure out how
to get out of the sewer,
the transfer
had cleared,
and
my wait list
isn’t massive
just
packed
in only
so much space,
and one
never knows
how much time.
My Monster
My monster, my charge,
another made-to-order entry
in punitive bioengineering, bound
and customized just for me
and my crime, framed
in a nightmare’s concoction
of boar spliced with weevil,
a perpetually
pissed
mess of blades,
bristling from birth, giving
no notice before latching onto
a shoulder, thigh, whatever
is closest
with an extended maxilla,
fang-cluttered and quick
to sink in,
twist,
and
slam me
to the ground,
rake me
with incisors
and a hide sharp as a storm
of lancets, sheets of stingers
like a hive of hornets
tarred over,
gouging,
cutting more of me
out of me, any
resistance
cutting deeper,
slashing at the line
over the line
of my crime,
a limit I loved, kept at,
a brink no one knows
until they arrive at its edge,
touch
if they are brave,
recoil
if they are human,
but, one has to,
has to write a poem
when one’s verdict is
a state-mandated monster
customized with two-dozen eyes,
compound and gleaming
like gurgling crude,
missing nothing,
forgetting less,
fixed
on a
terminal
conviction of
seven feet, never more,
or
the unbreakable bracelets
I wear,
rose gold
and stunning,
will close
at a spin,
spray anticoagulant
from the marrow
on up, ensuring
I bleed out,
this out
from hell
always here,
and keeps me
in the disaster that is
my apartment, shambles
as furniture, cratered drywall,
insulation bulging out
like my scars, cross-hatched
and always re-opening,
my monster makes me
less me than a texture
forever oozing,
just
surviving
what will
never heal,
and is always watched
on the RaibuFeed
via cameras
like pollen,
pervasive, broadcasting
on a livestream, a thesis
on deterrence,
proposing that this
is not
exploitation,
since, we are told,
entertainment
is an agreeable
preoccupation,
appeases
and scaffolds
a spectacle magnified
on the gleam in these bracelets
that I
will never
take off,
ornaments on the threat
that my state,
my neighbors,
audiences local,
national, and global
get
to watch,
“See what happens,”
the RaibuFeed says,
“When a crime this awful,
unnameable,
warrants living
with a many-eyed bulldog
covered in the pelt of a porcupine,
“See,
his monster’s invitation
for metaphor
that you, dear viewer,
would never
want to be
more than metaphor,”
which is
true,
we
can say
only
so much
in a poem,
pour out
our full faith
in broken syntax,
throw letters, tails
to ascenders, spurs
and crossbars between
more attacks,
pointing apexes
at approximations
and the monstrously
absurd, what could
only be understood
by not being the one
reading this poem,
but living, breathing, dreaming
beside a monster
in the RaibuFeed’s grasp,
and a viewership’s ROI, my
slow
public hanging
as justice-product,
acts as brief peace
on another dawn,
maybe evening,
a horizon line
burnt
or burning beyond windows
I’ll never see fixed,
stare through
while my monster
breathes slowly
beside me,
exhaling
like wind whistling
through a cracked pane,
growing breakage,
ending
or starting
more time to
consider distance,
seven
feet,
and how big
a state has to be
what volition
and violence
twist
like torque
on the axis of how long
seven feet really is
go ahead, says my monster, says
the RaibuFeed, and everyone
behind both, write, have at it,
we’ll bleed
everything
out of you
anyway,
if a poem
gets anything right,
nothing is
indefinite,
words
can indeed
catch meaning
in a place
where poets and viewers,
criminals, and my monster,
can
only
mean
so much,
are held
in circumferences
that run
thin
on
endurance
and time,
holding
the width of a wrist,
less, or
more
than
seven
feet.