Charles Borkhuis
Corrective Shoes
talk to the tables that turn
hinge words like locks
little animals scurry down
the tunnel under your left arm
no longer tied to this life
you are of course tied to this life
even while leaving
the opposite is also the case
you watch the red pampas pass
out the window of a moving train
you bend an empty paper cup
into a pyramid in your palm
and tumble head first
into the breakaway sky
Deep Cover
where did you say you
buried yourself
is that the password
spoken through the density
of quotidian details
you may have already sensed
a forest growing
out of the part in your hair
but have you ever noticed
the small metal door
in the joint of your left shoulder
if only you could turn the tiny wheel
surely enough steam would be released
so that you could shrink
smaller than the infinitesimal keyhole
through which you must
eventually pass
Minding the Brain
anything can become the critical point
that changes everything
I mumbled to the fly
languishing on a half-eaten peach
thoughts enter the space of things
or bounce off without warning
little tremors in the chest
what changes a wave into a particle
or a thought into a neural-peptide
the effortless leap from zero
to one that tells my hand to move
is not a straight line
but dips outside space-time
no wonder I’ve got the shakes
convulsive spasms
accompanying this thrown-ness
from one moment to the next
in one world we’re lovers
thrashing about in a rented room
in another we’re the ones
who never met
Patchwork Desire
slice and lift
the flap of skin on which
this dimension exists
parallel to countless others
sew the eyes shut
and the body fills with earth
as with an open grave
so as to concentrate
on the flutter of the infinitesimal
physicists pull strings but space
still rips and folds into a table
of erotic positions
constellations bend to dark matter
and mind becomes entwined
with what it observes
constructing a third
thing out of thin air
arms and legs for instance
running frantically around the perimeter
of a spinning wheel
or the brushwork bruise
extended across an open mouth
or perhaps that horseshoe-shaped
chrome ear twisting
lovingly around your forehead and eye
which reflects the smear
of speed’s momentary embrace
Scrab-Faced Messenger
enough empty sky
to drown in
first words bubble and stick
to the walls like fingers
like excrement like blood
watch yourself being watched
attitudes put on and take off
their skin
why this I now
a bubble-headed thought
hangs in space
something should fill it
crawl out of its casing
a scarab-faced messenger
mandibles in the ooze
should appear with the missing code
so we might know
what’s expected of us
The Call
streaming voices
speak through me
sliding over the boundaries
of a face in the dirt road
you appear only
a few words away
while others are poured
down a bottomless well
little to speak of now
that hasn’t canceled
itself out in the telling
but the sound lingers
sifting through pebbles
in your half-erased face
a dream narrative happily
fills in the missing details
that never quite happened
and memory goes along for the ride
The Thoughts of Others
sun shadows the fingers
across your face
x marks the spot of your last identity
paris wasn’t it parc mont souris
remember who supplied the body
now breathe in at the corners of vision
you are nothing more than a dizzying slit
on the horizon
go to the river
you will see two men gliding by in a rowboat
one will turn to you and say
“the thoughts of others”
the green hills will look blue in the distance
at “the thoughts of others café”
the cashier will place a key on the black
rubber tray and say “have a nice day”
you will leave the café and turn
the key in the black austin and drive to boston
wait in a drugstore named “the drugstore”
a woman with a limp will give you a plane ticket
to a country whose name you can’t pronounce
where you will kill a tall evil man sitting on a veranda
sniffing a white carnation
the key does not fit the ignition
someone else leaves in the austin
you will not drive to boston
there is no drugstore named “the drugstore”
there is no limping woman with a plane ticket
there is no country whose name you can’t pronounce
you are not a tall evil man sitting on a veranda
sniffing a white carnation