PRAIRIE M. FAUL

Epiphyte

I don’t think of the ground

as a place to leave

the things

we don’t want

behind.

When people speak

from their wrist-bent

instead of water-line

eye creased

Hello,

I’m trying to say I notice you

I hear you

Everything is going to be okay

I become a load-bearing

plant.

I wrote this song in

my head & it doesn’t

have any words really,

it’s just a placeholder.

A dike holding back all

this silence

& its the hum of late night,

bed spring, sighing

body bedding,

beside me.

Timid-line

I knew a person
with a mouth
as an old gate
that hinged forward
to let out
how much gold history
they’d lived in
Who once told me
to process
the events in my life
to make nice with them
invite them via email
with correct punctuation
& a certain sense of formality
to be interviewed
at their earliest convenience
I guess expertise
is  just another word
for someone who holds
a painting in their hands
of two bodies breaking against
each other
& places it above
the toilet
in their brick two story
on the other side of town
40 minutes away
I’m sitting outside a coffee shop
I work at
to let free coffee turn lukewarm
in front of me
To wait so long
that the caffeine
peels skin back
like wood plane
from soft oak
I have 12 tabs open
& none of them have a thing
to do
with being a person
I have 12 thumbtacks
in a failing backpack
& i place them between
my teeth thinking
that leaving a mark
means leaving a hole
in something
that never wanted you to show it
how malleable we can all be
At best I’ll make
an attempt
to frame this all
together
I’ll make space
between us
On the mattress
On the floor
a pair of social statues
cross-legged awaiting
the next great war
Waking up
is supposed
to be the start of something
so why does it feel
like i passed out
face pressed too long
against the fibers
of a waiting room chair
every morning
N says*
“We made language
just to keep touching
each other
even when we lose
our bodies
& I’m fucking crying about it”

 

 

*Graciously provided by N. Jewell

Dear eroding heart-break,

I have yet to dream about you on a sea side

With a lighthouse coiled around your neck-bones

I wonder what this means about how you’ve

been growing since last we spoke

I have these apologies that cycle with the moon &

my hydration efforts, I keep them in discarded

Pots on the porch facing outward an old cemetery

The light from that direction is doing such wonderful

Things for their growth

I am sorry that we are molting things

For a long time it meant we would never get cold

I could wrap you in an old thick skin I no longer

needed & you looked like a newly awoken dog

so rosy and soft within them

But I am a girl with stalagmites & all the features

One doesn’t want from them

The air out here is damp & for a girl like a cave

It is doing such wonderful things for my skin

I hear you are writing a new language

That those who speak in song & color & their bodies

Can finally be understood in a common tongue

I wish I had the same capabilities

But I am growing so fond of the ways new people’s voices

Echo through me & all the small creatures that are comfortable

Vibrating at the same frequency

 

Forever yours,

Prairie

Life without Buildings

Lucky for you

I have two hands

Wrist bent back

Up and out like

Proffered flexibility

An imbalanced pose

Of heart-bruises

thinned skin

Lightning rod

You see these questions

Have curtains

& if you ask them at night

Its hard to see whats

Revealing about it at all

This is all in a room

I mean youre in a room

And im outside

I mean theres a room

In my body

Where the ducts are retired

Without much use

Where hands fidget & flail

When theres too much

Stale air in here

Maybe the plants outside

Are overgrown beds

To rest in

When we feel dried up

& shoving this much lake

Into my eyes

& These bodies of water

That i love

& this delicate stance

We’re finding ourselves in

Is a shrunk shirt

Left on the floor

You thought i was still pretty in

Prairie M. Faul is a Cajun Poet and flagrant transsexual currently living in New Orleans. She is the author of Burnt Sugarcane from GloWorm Press and her work can be found at www.motsduprairie.com and wherever softness is at its most elusive.