poemtober 1+2

single-celled eukaryotes light up the ocean
swirl around your ankles in
glowing loops ribbons streams of foam
you want them in your bloodstream illuming
you from the inside out
making you a being of light too
subsurface scattering pulsing in a toxic tide
and when you stand in the
glow-in-the-dark sea and look up
you see stars in the sky the same
way they live in the water live
underneath your skin.

freak of nature
the medication meets bone/carpal/nerve and says
i am God and says i am cure/ache/buzz and fills
your flesh with twinge/sting/fizzle down from the
elbow to the wrist, and the medication/cure/God
says i will find the brain/fallacy/disease and rip it out
at it’s root and twist until you are empty/barren/clean.
God will burrow into your clean skin/clothes/hair
until you can never forget routine/morning/evening
pills that stick in your throat/lungs/sweat and melt sticky
in your spit, bitter/bone/God on your heavy tongue.