shira dentz

the smoker.         (surveys her own wasp-waist figure)

cells float in the open body alongside the wasps constrict

swimming in their glass cases /  spread-out-ship-wreck

lay clenched at their depths /  then bloomed

today I was cleaning out the rooms of my ills

a captain’s horn cut half by the breath /  a salt pot

a tobacco box /  sugar tin pitted out

my alchemy /  and amphetamine

to intake /  and the smoke plunged /  as indents and prints

(a mimic) of trees /  the tube of my neck lifts up

an amateur’s ribbon /  (a mimic) /  a corset cinched

the wind makes comb strokes on the sea’s sea

and the sky of a varied

through the hollowed eye of an hourglass /  or artery

closed its chamber /  in currents

tap /  and a slight pitch

chronicles of salt.         (crane)

along the north wall a mural of ships

the water links down under the strain of it

see day /  the sun a knot /  to sky

the room is white as a crane

to crowds lined pillar at the gate

their wrists’ aviary as though a humming /  an inner z

the breakers push through the sea-top-layer /  of salt say

through a grain

there towards the new-city

the wind’s white bones float across noon