Julie Doxee
poems from New Body a Seafloor Body
The first time you
clap your mouth
to stop sound
nerves sugarcoat
our arms & tongues
bleed little pictures of
chimneys I tattoo to
the rooftop
you shout from.
____________________
Filled your
kitchen with paper
cows I stuck with
mustard to the window
so no one could look
out or in without
looking hard for
a crack between the ear
& tail, a sliver
yellow-oozing on the
sill. “It rained sail
boats away” & the
neighbor’s real cow
waded after as if
one long moo
were the hunger
for tall grass on
that island over there.
_______________________
The boat ran out
of gas & you
followed a fish
to the sandbar
& pulled it, blue,
with a hand-raw grip
on the yellow rope we
knotted for help.
_______________________
Called you to line
tomato cans up on
the fence we could punch
off with our chests,
cro-magnonly, to
shock the heart we’d
held back bleeding in
a different red of sad,
embarrassed fingers
pulling at teeth &
only cutting the
redder rim of
a bite not bitten.
_____________________
I didn’t quite
fit right on
the bed you
pointed to &
leaned out the
window to call
the ground up
to my face &
nothing came but
the smell of dirt
so my face fell face-
first down to meet it.
_______________________
A cave keeps on
its crag forensic
bits of arm, octopus
suctions a stuck-to
pebble, new body
a seafloor body left
slack. Good posture
penned on in black
the hail grays.
________________________
My anatomy is off. Call arm
a twilight I know
untangles feel. Call leg
a stairway the word
especially climbs.
My eyes. I’ve speared them
with millions of lights. I go
to the store & return
the memory of someone’s
week’s vacation.
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