Matthew Henriksen
The Roof
The roof can't keep out
the sound of rain, nor eaves
ease sleep.
Tangled silence,
as you said "drown,"
drowned, stirred our vacancy.
Muting discretion,
our lips danced back
at loss, our ring,
where meaningless
plungings in a rumbling surface
(how the deaf dance)
in a lot full of rain
stared back out:
with distance, a warping,
so we won't come single file to burning shelves.
Falling
Holy tissue made of glass,
my tongue is a flame
you touch with your finger,
a flame I try to swallow, bitter
little bird I am, mother day.
Passé History Testes
Screwed brain to spine with nut & bolt
but forgot the washer in your pocket.
Make money, dinner & love in the closet
with the closest monkey you can afford.
You love the monkey because you must
obey the law of a desert skull.
Make your river snake. Tail feathers
fake a virile imagination, when every
monkey knows you oblate doom.
Oh happy chance to've made
your life a feature loony tune,
and the gross product, a pearl
of cum on a cactus, does not bloom.
Matthew Henriksen is the author of Is Holy (horse less press, 2006), Another Word (DoubleCross Press, forthcoming), and Only Grows (Cue Editions, forthcoming). Recent poems appear online in The Cultural Society. He co-edits Typo, an online poetry journal, and produces Cannibal Books, a literary book arts press.
