preoccupied by this bird
knocking on my occipital
  I lie
about the man
squatting on the windowsill
  hammerhead gargoyle
his cranial cavity is a chasm
not a canyon
  a silkworm tunneled therein
the man arrived
on a saucer
not in the Ming vase
  delft might have inked him
this is not an exercise
in retroflexion
  I am not inverted

There is too much truth-
telling
  I lie
about rococo and the ceiling
of the Bavarian castle
  Bardolino confessional & a priest
  named Theo
the flaking wall of the cellar
and my grandfather
and his minions
  a chop shop a hog Harley and Chapstick
about mixing turmeric
and turpentine for
that savory stew
I fed you
  saliva and phlegm-gobs, as it happens

This bird is an augur
presaging a Jungian carnival
bowling pins gyre
horses say Mother
a dog laps
another dog
round a NASCAR track
a rolled up tongue
a home-rolled cigarette
Are you on board
  clipped in
  pinned to styrofoam?
Did you build the pop can pyramid
on the floor of the Pacific?
  If you
  ask me
  I will lie

There's no two ways
about it
I hang spiraling
like a mobile
   driftwood fossil foil
   aluminum rabbit ear antennae
   a ribcage in a glass case
a cake box
without a cake
   now you see
Do you believe?

Wednesdays

on Wednesdays
we laid rough stones 
along the dry-lipped crinkled edges 
of his porch 

on Wednesdays
he looked away you swiped my face
your tawdry hanky
Assam-stained
we wrung each other out

on Wednesdays
I watched his gray-jacket body
shoulders like a hook
I counted his steps in the drive
passenger door swung shut
like a red rubber stamp

on Wednesdays
I retired to the wicker rocker
he left behind trying to decide
what was lonelier, an empty chair
or a single chopstick

on Wednesdays
you came from behind
covered my eyes surprise surprise
I missed him before his car was
out of sight 

Wednesdays

Written in collaboration with Brendan Bonsack (www.brendanbonsack.com)

By Brendan Bonsack and Reka Jellema
August 2014

we hunkered down
in the unholy holes behind newsprint
sleeves rolled all Wall Street
all auto mechanic
all greased & slicked
we hack-sawed concrete sidestepped knapsacks
asleep on park benches
we fouled pinafores spoke in pinpricks
pacifiers planted in pie-holes
we watched you evanesce with panache
we watched cocked and maned we watched
one thumb with silvery polish roll into a ditch
tin can cocktail weenie
someone said
pickled punks
someone said
boiled pigs feet
we hunkered down in a moshpit of unclaimed legs
& crumpled bits
labia in pubic nests
ear lobe potato chips
a wad of chewed bubble gum
smeared lips
the color red
no one will ever read this
someone said
turn it off
your boy spilled Tinker Toys
dropped an f-bomb
we eye-rolled handed off
the remote

we tuned in
we hunkered down -- hamboned the gig
riffed & licked
cat-gutted it
chopped chords heads rolled spurt spurt
a kneecap snapped like a forest twig
we jukeboxed -- hair stiff on her cheek
an eye adrift sky-ward as-if
oh heavens above
someone said
while the doc dug earth from a socket with a toothpick
we hunkered down dirt-nailed hammered-home
wanted something to stick
in our hole
stop-gap
what we did to fill ourselves
what we did
carefully tread
missed our femurs our metatarsals
we missed our spleens our tongues our tonsils
we off-handed those harelipped kids
those kids flew into the vast indifference
those kids landed piecemeal
the Barbies we threw splayed
and indecent

O stone
I hold you
dear

Wrap round your
Rough gray

Place my mouth
On your mouth

The gods did not know of
The scab of your soul

Of tenderness tendered
A circle of moon

Its powder a tinder
Liquid and soft
And lain upon the flint

Like a palm that says
Be still

Written with Brendan Bonsack

By Reka Jellema and Brendan Bonsack
July 2014

the son i never wanted
wants his body back
calls for a name a hand a heat grate
two walls and a basket
of books and the eyes of
a wicker chair to kaleidoscope
when you stare

the son I never wanted
wants a marble named Mario
that train set mom gave away
the lost gray waves of the tug boat
the steely chop-chop-chop
cold wavy-waves of the great lake chopping
at the chill-blink of sky

the wave before the wave after
and the wave to come
the wave
upon which he head-butted
the shore --

O little one
for the smoothed green stone
and the blue beach-glass prize
for every Leland stone for every
pinprick fossil for the footsucking
edge-of-the-surf sand-suck

it was nothing

A view
For you. Out there
It burns. The whole world
browns, curls
into a claw
An old oak leaf
clings
to her tree

Silvery confetti
loosed from on high, lacing
Scotch pines
We held our breath, hushed
by winter white
The dog licked snow
from the sky