Faye Kicknosway
The sky has a cage in it
and Vermont and Texas
kiss each other every four hundred
miles. Dorothy knew this
before home slid off
the tongue of the two-bit huckster
selling it. Made her stand up
in tight shoes that had the edge
of the world in them.
A diagram of the effect
Pluto has on the coastline of Alaska
killed her. She was folded up
and stuffed into a picnic basket
on the island of Baltimore
in the Pacific Ocean not far
from Kansas, an optical illusion
sometimes seen in cave dwellings
and sub-tropical storms.
for Donald Grabau
geometry
of spider threads
and there's
the spider
sand paper arse animated
by lice and pustules
bridegroom
come in search of
gas stations party rentals
& supplies glass termite
& pest control auto air
conditioning voice mail
power equipment signs &
graphics parasail/jet ski
WoahooHanoruruWhyteetee
hurahura girls
to carve a hole in
for the soap dish
the towel rack
the closet
paradise
A-LO-HA
There is an island, but it is a hat
and a photograph of
a hat, and breath—so tenuous—
overhangs it
as does an inkwell; no;
an octopus
in a black suit
sewing an umbrella
because it’s a comical shape; no;
because it’s a conical shape
and so pious
and so envious
of Aristotle’s salamander:
four elbows
instead of eight—and a heart
that is its eyes’ engine
all drawers
all handstands
and cartwheels of it
There are whistles and heat
and the dryer spinning.
Boys, loose from their cloven feet,
remember
to be merciful. No mother
forgives them.
There is half-light
and a half-step.
The republic of gloves?
A knot of appropriate sweat?
Miles of doubt have been left
on doorsteps.
Peek between the venetian blinds
and you’ll see it.
How fleshy the moon is,
its testicles, its pianos,
its exaltation.
It smokes at the hip
against a backdrop of banana trees
spilled up
from a page that will,
at some later date, wander
in the company of pigs and sheep.
A good fit
but filled with amnesia
and a wasted life
in the tropics.
Faye Kicknosway has published 12 books. Map: was published in the Honolulu Weekly. Short Take 16 is in Mixed Plate, published by Wesleyan Press. There Are Whistles and Heat was published in the Hawai'i Review. The titles of the two latest books are: Mixed Plate, Wesleyan Univeristy Press, 2003, and Still Windows Run Deep, Ridgeway Press, 2003.
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