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[nudeasthenewss]

the body of a tree is
tied to a wooden rod
to correct the posture
of the landscape--
scoliosis of the outside world
oxygen bending at it's backbone
while i am struggling to breathe
in utah
houses crumble their archetexture
against a skyline of dead grass
the color of wheat
that crawls over a highway that
keeps me moving while i lock
my knees
and see the Star of David on a rooftop
and suddenly i think of your mother
but mostly of sylvia plath
and sticking my head
in an oven
to warm my locked jaw
and to boil the jewish blood that
i had begun to see
rise to the surface of
my pink cheeks
in texas
i remove myself only from this body
to empty my exhausted eyes
into a pillow that
is soaking wet
even from five hundred miles away
and i'm learning to love this distance--
it is heavy and silent
over a telephone wire
while you tell me about the corners
of a woman with mousy brown hair's
mouth and how when she touches you
her fingers leave dents
in the surface of your skin
that remind you of the
spaces inbetween airline seats and
that quiet hum of a jet plane's engine
but they only remind me of
two years that i spent hiding
underneath covers and
trying to make out with the outline
of your body in early morning
hours
while beneath my head phones
in nebraska
i can hear my brother
laughing loud and obnoxious from
the front lawn of the city that
my mother grew up in
the back of my neck begins to freeze
when the weather drops down
to thirteen degrees and
i'm smiling while
on the side of the road
the cows start to stand up at dawn
while they move east
the clouds curl up
over the tops of mountains
billowing like smoke
from a house on fire.