Photographs of Last Year Look Like a Crime Scene

           [after Autobiography of Red, by Anne Carson]

Exhibit A:

when they made love
i. when                they made love
               ii. when they        made love

               iii. when they made

Exhibit B:

I am dreaming the dark-hand dream
a man’s naked back staring at a dawn
arched running away

I am dreaming the dawn-dream
a man’s naked staring / me, arched / me,
running away

Exhibit C:

when we make (love)
each the bones / of her back
an arched dream / a both-hands
/ dream cause a shiver / of
rain a root / in the dark the
night / splits open too soon

Exhibit D:

(the base of her spine / the bass
of her throat)

Exhibit E:

a low sound [l/m]oves in me
slowly, opens

Exhibit F:

Jesus I hate it when you cry.
          Jesus I hate it when you         cry.
                         Jesus I hate it when      you cry.
                                      Jesus I hate it               when you cry
                                                              when you cry
                                           I hate it
                                           I hate it  when you
                                           I hate it         you cry
                                           I hate               you
                                           I
                                           I
          Jesus
                    I hate when

                    I’m sorry.
                    I’m sorry.

                                    Jesus, I—

Exhibit G:

I LOVED YOU ONCE AND NOW I DON’T ANYMORE
I LOVED YOU ONCE BUT I DON’T KNOW YOU ANYMORE
I LOVED YOU ONCE BUT I DON’T NOW AND I DON’T KNOW YOU ANYMORE
I DON’T KNOW YOU ANYMORE BUT ONCE I LOVED YOU
I LOVED YOU AND NOW I DON’T KNOW ANYMORE

or i am groping at
the bedsheets for your hot
breath lumped like i’m not the only one
i’m alive for i mean

Exhibit H:

Can’t you ever just fuck and not think? Can’t I eat you out of my hands? Don’t you have a napkin? Aren’t you ready for this?

Exhibit I:

I am standing at the window and my back is staring out into
the dark room and I
am running both hands down my neck lover,
cause me, lover
dream me

and in the not-light
I am the beautiful boy I write poems about and I
root shallowly into myself and I run
up the electric bill looking for
love and I make
this poem about me I make
everything about me and I
touch in slow succession each
the bones of my hands and I wait
for the dawn to open her eyes

For Spit

two days ago i stopped messaging first
                                                                                          and since then it’s been
quiet and it’s not like i don’t know
                                                                                          what my body does to mens’ mouths
i just mean cops have barreled
                                                                                          into the bones of my friends and i and
we still can’t admit into existence
                                                                                          that we stay late at every event
just in case the mouth belonging to
                                                                                          the body we imagine barreling
into us like

                              glass
                              spattered
                                           a vein
                                           burst
                                                      a waking
                                                       alert
                                                                        a phone’s
                                                                        buzz
                                                                                     break-
                                                                                     ing the
                                                                        night
                                                            back
                                                 open

                                        asks us if we’d like to go home
                                        with them

                                        tonight.


L. R. Bird (they/them) is a trans poet cryptid haunting highway rest-stops. They’ve hosted the Texas Grand Slam final stage and multiple National Poetry Slam prelim stages, performed at places like Busboys & Poets and the Bowery Poetry Club, have work forthcoming in the 2017 Bettering American Poetry anthology, and they are the author of Bloodmuck (The Atlas Review, 2018) and Invention of the Mouth (Dream Pop Press, 2019). WEB

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