Inside this Shadow & I am Not a Breadbox

Inside this Shadow

とんとんとん
what breaks open a seed from the inside
this is a birth too
mystic force for a baby shoot to rise
from packed soil burst a white bulb
into lemon or bleak inspiration
I have rejected so many.
Fires become important messages
but only if you shout and dispatch a fleet
of spells and rotten.
No, I insist.
Peel this magma from my vaginal folds
and whip it until it’s stiff peaks
use it for a regrettable promise
or a volcanic eraser.
We’ll not accept
parchment lectures
or a word like merit.
Those false propagandas
were given to us
as a dusty symbol of
cornices.
Things I need like
milk and laundry and dashi
I save up for and purchase
with my lack of sleep
and abstinence from poetry.
Quiet. I must
FORTUNE

or work. Overworn
fealty to image and
shadow yet I can’t
throw it out just yet.

Which stability is the one I was to aspire to?

My hips have collected
heat that erodes silent
and my quills radiate
into exhaustion.

I am Not a Breadbox

Tell me is it really so easy
to open up the sternum and walk around
all day with the lungs flapping
like loose balloons in a colander—
intestines lurching up and around
the gallbladder tapping out a tune.
I’ve tried and I only got as far as
a crescent moon, a partways point
to exposure.
The heart would be a
skinned roma tomato or sagging
mango waiting for permission. I’m
ready for the right emulsion but
can’t quite find the arithmetic
that would satisfy this complicated
tunnel.
Can’t find the tool
that would take my interior out
sweeping wind into trunk and
leave me a museum for passersby.