--- R O N A L D   P A L M E R

"I speak / because / I am shattered"  Louise Gluck, The Red Poppy

Orange snake:  coiled into anxious smirking:
thick: head: lifted:  swaying  like intoxicated saint:  smelling tongue:
flame licking:  harmonized in fighting position:

I think I know:  what you mean when you think in voices:
I see you in your garden talking to the flowers:  writing periodically in
your note: book:  I know what you suffer from:  Lie down in the grass:

Go ahead:  put them into flowers:  I snatch him up:  myself:  drop him into
a glass box.  Let him rile and complain all night:  snapping fangs:
everything's a wind: ow:  hemo:  rr:  haging:  attempting to pass:  as
elite:  as polished:                                                  
let's all roll in the mud together:  that'll erase difference:
Where my life becomes parodic:
do you:  dig me?  Com:  pre:  nde?  Mot:  her:  fuc:  ker?:

My father and me:  are still swimming:  like blind dogs:  in my childhood:
   bedroom:  yeah:  you like that:  don't you:  pawing through:  lukewarm
orange water:  searching :  (my father:  used to call:

my mother:  stupid bitch:  recall an itch?):                             
pine needled surface:   for crucial breaths:  near the claustrophobic
ceiling:
Where a rueful voice announces:  since you were two:  a longing invades:

like bone-
damp:
ness:

A submerged lamp clicks on:  shows our legs wading:
injects a shivering:  I pull the cryptic door   handle:  less:  ly inward:
as my entire orange ocean:  flows out.