Carina Finn

 

 

Mink

 

We are alone together in the city
and it is so lovely
it has to break apart whatever
cities might be made of.

Maybe I will do
what I know how to do: drink tea,
write all morning, chainsmoke
in a stranger's window.

Now that I have achieved destruction
I should be happily shrouded in fur.

The day hurts a little all the time
and a dangling knife hangs deadly off
the sun.

Hi there, sullen mistress.
You're a scourge in the garden of missed
aches.
How dare ye sing of learning
when you're still so dumb?

And so—
stock pot, microwave, & prop gun.
A withered squeal like a lily in my trunk.

I am laying one soda bottle
upon your grave.

It takes this much to stand before you
like a woman

Like, I have to heave up what I can't even name.

 

 

 

Another Mink

 

I walked into an aquifer.
There was a nest of candles
Installed beside a birch
Which was weeping,
Obviously;

I opened a can & there were
Two hundred and fifty
Thoroughbreds.

I caught a cab, I broke it,
I drowned an osprey in a vat
Of liquid paper.

You are hunting
In the valley of nails & shiny,
Shiny blanks.
You are wearing a ring, &
It hurts.

I'd like to call you sir.
I'd like to call these dim close hours of morning.
I'd like to call these days
But they're just minutes masquerading as a night.
& anyway the canal is just a fire escape
Heading nowhere, and the flippant blue children
Are really just children.

Once, I kissed you
In a phrase of synesthesia.
I was standing over my own
Body, weeping.
I knew I had stolen my false
Diamonds from your age.
& I knew it was wrong.
I feel so alive.