POEM THAT I WROTE IN SRI LANKA 1.1

Catching a breeze on the noon train toward cancerous mountains with ivy retinas,
lapping the thin film of trust on the floorboards like salt-candy ribbons,
super-sleuthing a crack out the brushed leather ceiling tilt,
cracking our heads against windows to rust-covered landscaping trestle,
rushing the glass till it bends into liquid for melting a classroom of thieves,
waiting the day to a speck on the tracks to derail all the letters we wrote to the sky,
trusting in treetops delivering sermons to critters that worship the rain and its faults,
channeling arabesque reruns in dresses stitched up with thread from the mouth of a crow,
losing connections from jail time to hammering lethal vernacular bones,
preening for daybreak (the tremulous daughter) which winces at cartons of laud rushing by,
tricking coals into bed with the maiden of feverish homework for hours on end,
all to prepare for the turning of seasons on end by the hand of murderous friends.

Flailing, mashing about, in the murk brown of the "sea", I began wishing it was noon somewhere.
I dream of noon in a foreign language, mostly, and with my fingers all out like little fish.
People start saying "I love you" with exclamation marks or little fish, shaped like exclamation marks.
People start marking my messages important, and saving them,
putting them all in little brown tins labeled THINGS I AM TRYING NOT TO FORGET
Forget about mishandled bank deals for a minute, and look at me!
at least tease out your hair and traipse around my villa like a burning flamingo.
I found all this news in a heap called "Give me a dollar or I'll cut off your dick!"
It was not good news. It was not a good exclamation. I do not own a villa.
I am burning. It is still hot.