house rules

    1 First, the corridor

    Trying to find some place to stuff you.
    To my left, where left, the not-so phantom
    whitmanesque satisfiers: boulders come up
    from... from under-lint made bulbous by my feet's
    inadequate grammatterings. Huge somehow,

    deluged under proprioceptors.
    This should be easier though than these.

    To right, sour-hughes: a pastoral England
    past its solstice. Berries I noticed today,
    already orange.
    Trees randy for their crows.

    2 hallway

    So I should be able to take my clot
    between index and thumb
    and yum yum it to myself.
    Hum blood into at least part
    of a baby face; make whole
    of you, our apartness.

    3 'But' the house calls

    and there are no presences.
    I don't believe in the Translatress,
    humifacents that I can't spell.

    Tubes are after all other women's
    placentae. My laughter lines
    allergic to aborteds.

    4 doorway

    I was cyanotic. This they didn't tell. But I learnt it.
    Couldn't cry. Their tube into me
    like your dread.

                Research is an alleyway
           between cushions
         between comforts.

    5 stairs

    And stepping down today
    I grew afraid.
    I have ear wax.
    I can mould you.
    I can fix you like a corn dolly.

    But you're only ever a surfactant. Ever an after-
    thought and the summer's done
    and from other glands
    I must dredge
    contact.

    6 bottom step

    pre-verbal
    tantric spurt
    cunt-spritz in my palm
    loving you       oh and as borndead this knowing you
    without knowing you a gift walls afterthoughts
    seeing you where you sit and smoke and knowing what you drink

    and why especially The Sad

    7 library

    that palm, that held the elephant's head hawk moth
    a brilliant fluorescent pink and
                                                                             
                         green

    and watched it pump its wings
    and it must have flown
    for it was gone
    a Donne at a lean
    a child's parents have finally split
    one of my old dog's 's arthritic

    spaces left by age
    conflict
    words failed
    words bringing me back

    8a pebbledash walls

    8b carpet

    but come in your hand
    and slide some under the mat
    so that there's no need for dust mites'
    shit dropping through the pile
    to ground us
    a gorgeous scent of something
    chicly avant-garde depthing
    where poets bear grime
    break
    fuck furrows into borrowed cisms
    and the crust of you found years hence
    is made famous

    9 by the stink

    we'll kick up




    Bio Note
      AnnMarie Eldon was born in Birmingham, England. Her work has, is or will be found at Aught, Can We Have Our Ball Back, Conspire, Duct Tape Press, Fire Magazine, Junket, Impetus, Locust, and several other magazines.  

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     AnnMarie

     Eldon