Regeneration
She looks in each cell
for Nefertiti.
"We all come from the same
atom," he said.
And then a queen
was inside her,
and the dirt of Gettysburg
made up the brown
in her eyes.
"Then," he said, "we shed
each century
like snakes do
the daybreak."
And, terrified,
she seized each nucleus,
hoping for
a diamond pore,
a last remnant of an empress,
a piece of Elvis
to hold onto.
And she never bathed
because Shakespeare
might leave her
and give his verses, his genius
to the next living thing -
to the cockroaches,
the river’s bend.
Insides
there are so many insides
between us
liver spleen and gut
we're strangers
you took me to atlantic city
fat caterpillars in tube tops
stroll on wood by sea
the taffy twinkles like a 1950s postcard
green lime smells of salt
digests in us in stops and starts
and i dream of coming
like the earth's insides
spilling out in a hot red
murdering mess
neruda keats digiorgio
they can only see so much of me
my pools of narcissus
i don't know them at all
an orange has a sunset
inside
a worm a muddy stream
paper has tiny birch tree snow
a split plum reveals the color
of human skin
and when you and i kiss
a secret
small and scared
crawls
from my stomach
to yours
and brings back only
a whisper
