August 2, 2011 | +
Katherine Larson, “Love at Thirty-Two Degrees”

                              I

Today I dissected a squid,
the late acacia tossing its pollen
across the black of the lab bench.
In a few months the maples  
will be bleeding. That was the thing:  
there was no blood
only textures of gills creased like satin,  
suction cups as planets in rows. Be careful
not to cut your finger, he says. But I’m thinking
of fingertips on my lover’s neck  
last June. Amazing, hearts.
This brachial heart. After class,
I stole one from the formaldehyde
& watched it bloom in my bathroom sink
between cubes of ice.


                               II

Last night I threw my lab coat in the fire  
& drove all night through the Arizona desert  
with a thermos full of silver tequila.

It was the last of what we bought  
on our way back from Guadalajara—
desert wind in the mouth, your mother’s  
beat-up Honda, agaves  
twisting up from the soil
like the limbs of cephalopods.

Outside of Tucson, saguaros so lovely
considering the cold, & the fact that you  
weren’t there to warm me.
Suddenly drunk I was shouting that I wanted to see the stars  
as my ancestors used to see them—

to see the godawful blue as Aurvandil’s frostbitten toe.


                               III

Then, there is the astronomer’s wife  
ascending stairs to her bed.

The astronomer gazes out,  
one eye at a time,

to a sky that expands  
even as it falls apart

like a paper boat dissolving in bilge.
Furious, fuming stars.

When his migraine builds &
lodges its dark anchor behind

the eyes, he fastens the wooden buttons
of his jacket, & walks

outside with a flashlight
to keep company with the barn owl  

who stares back at him with eyes
that are no greater or less than

a spiral galaxy.
The snow outside

is white & quiet
as a woman’s slip

against cracked floorboards.
So he walks to the house

inflamed by moonlight, & slips
into the bed with his wife  

her hair & arms all
in disarray

like fish confused by waves.


                               IV

Science—

beyond pheromones, hormones, aesthetics of bone,
every time I make love for love’s sake alone,

I betray you.

(via)

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