poem without awakening

of course it’s cruel
to kill a bear
as it hibernates, but
forgive me: my first thought
when i heard the outcry
was this is how
i want to go: asleep,
full, before spring,
holed up, breathing
slowly and then not,
already unconscious
for a long time, and then—

poem without desire

consider the knees: a hinge
holding the thighs’ call
for gravity. consider scent
as attraction: the awakening
of a shark slicing its own
fin down to the cartilage
just to smell the blood.
consider the amniotic sea
struck open with
the rugged slice of
distant lightning, the silent
early seconds after.

wait for what draws near.
for what draws the lips to drip.
when the sea swallows us
whole—which will be
soon—i will learn to
swallow the whole sea.