NETSUKE

NETSUKE

NETSUKE

I walk on thin soles
this dense season. 


No wind lifts the leaves, 
the thickened stream 


shakes no reeds. 
I spread my fan, 


hide half my wan
face, pale with lead, 


pale with the shit
of nightingales. 


The marks they limn 
on my nape


might have been 
knife marks, 


stark when I blushed 
at his figurines: 


women and men coiled 
round each other 


like worms, 
a tongue-cut sparrow, 


a nest of rats. 
They keep his objects


from sliding down 
that long silk cord


he hangs beside 
his genitals, and being


lost. When I draw
his blade across my 




arm it resembles
water dripping over


a stone lip 
in the stone garden, 


runny wax 
from a candle, 


the new moon’s 
incised smile.