Aliza Gans

All I KNow

A long time back

jagged amulets at my hip

locked out gallant lousiness

looming cliffs of litter

leagues of flaking paint

roaring whitewater receipts

circus of circuits handheld

sizzle-hiss erosion

double beef patty briefcase

rats tunnel through tonnage

Please pick up after your slog:

a day’s messy hand-to-hand.

. . .

Lying on the lawn

where I learned to walk

green lap gives, fungus blooms

wise worms whisper

the point of money while organs

answer tiny brutalities.

Never still, no protection

frictions fraction, keys unpin

steel, I’ve never cared

what wills the milling, manuscripts

disagree all I know are strokes

for a password, rapidfire guesswork

lashing the palisade like tall grasses at ankles

running from, catching up. Here, on the brink

I’ve spotted my wonder

holding what’s alive from the sea,

tending a growing thing, opening letters,

hand over headline

AmberGris (Strange Whale Puke, Floating Gold)

Began as clerical error, bony prick

of shellfish swallowed like day

into whale belly ocean.

Acute, vanishing,

nothing drastic was done.

Inside sunken shadow

bile buffed and balled a waxy chimera—

part sea glass, part salami.

. . .

I found a lump freshly burped

from the surf like prophet

battered, resisting the tide. Immediately

I performed an assessment of quality:

Fragrant sacrament of old church

when licked with the lighter.

A putrid pearl holding

the weight of the watery world.

Nothing fancy ever came

from the gut of a cetacean but this

enduring indifference, lolling

until spit into manmade elixirs.

CalL Me Back

I recognized you

in a bowl of peaches

as water washed them,

swelling sweetness

then, a breath of you

swished branches,

whistled through the window

stirring curtains.

Was it really you? Calling me back

to the gristly vineyard, fruit-stained

knees, mischievous mess,

drunk on wine in air...

Silver silos of your prizes

mirror every angle of the sun

bouncing warmth back to my blood

before my heart can.

Thin filets firm-white, packed ice

Somewhere a dinghy putters
stirring up black water
 
where I first caught flounder.
Gramma prepares the station:

a cutting board between two armrests
in the marina—

a slimy writhing slab. I panic
fish spasms thump thump
on salted pier.
 
Papa unhooks it letting the flounder
flounder in 3 gallons of brine
gills clamped
lost eye on its side. Wide

gaze,  chin
barely past the board, Papa’s sausage
fingers running
over the stainless steel library
of little knives.

WOODEN coaster

chattering thru forest: spiralling squirrel
dodging trees, toothpicks spark
prick my cheeks, fear festers
in my fun. gentle tug
on the lap belt (we both
signed up for this) my eyes pry
to focus on what's still
familiar, but can't stop
squinting, protecting
grapes in my skull, rattling

anthropology of origins, 10AM

Paleolithic cave carvings projected
onto postmodern cave wall,

laser pointer spear cast
mesolithic mantras.

In Laetoli, Tanzania, two hominids stride
across ashen landscape after volcanic

explosion. The hairy couple, astonished
by barrenness, holding

one another, shivering. Could the limp
in the smaller ancestor’s step be the weight

of her child clinging
at the hip? Threepointsix million years

buries disaster. Fossil
in silt speculate fire-hardened clay.

Kebara, Israel throat bone artic-

ulation for archaic language,
first ribbons of babble.
 
Peek under green crust, petrified

love, fear, anger—stronger then,

It was all they had.