{FROM THE TOP THE VERY TOP}

déjà vu in a dream
sitting before the moon
in the age of photography
exhibit on view through
twenty-two september twenty-nineteen
legs dangling over
these well-worn steps

the smell of meat being
raised or rising
the sound of cantonese
& the click a camera
makes when I'm recording
I always wondered how
people in movies can brush

for so long without spitting
or letting the foam dribble
out from their lips
in other words
my favorite part about pinball is the release
at THE STARLIGHT or under star light
the first wish I make is to be

held or to hold
a melody my rhythmic succession
of parts in relation
to a whole singing
from the top the very top
of my tip toes so I can reach
all of my body in the mirror

the lower half below
the sink I lean upon the way I lean
into certain distances thinking how
when I vacuum I can be
aggressive / there's something I want
to say about wanting
to get under things

to bring them out
& then to watch
my traces disappear
hair sweat & even skin
something considered that can't be seen
something seen that can't be considered
the knowledge that photography was invented

to map the visible surface
of the moon / my favorite part
of any day is when I can hold
sun & moon
in the same gaze
knowing I need
to always not have

either but both & to be
simultaneous / fantasy:
not to be apollo but apollo's muse
outside the dream I'm only listening to
fear of music annotating veins
of certain leaves / a means
of transport & feeding, guilty

of a certain tendency
to use my mouth like a mother
board / standing up
like this
can be a miracle
because first we're animals
& then we're human & then & then
we're machines

__

{THE FACE LIKE BREATH / LET US REHEARSE}

whose is the voice that the I implies
where are the warm spots on the body
& when were you made
aware     the sky moves

faster than the frame
I begin when you
ask me to     begin
first the mind goes

then the body     the body always
after I think a thing I feel it
(movement of a torso
vs. how I thought

it would move) I
replayed this thought end
-lessly / on a couch / on my bed / legs
dangling from a bar stool

from which I eat most
days / the same
table that serves
this text     how

thrilling to hear your voice
in another's throat or
there is this &
its resemblance     what is language

but a kind of mimicry     what does
an eye remember
of its history     we made
a point to distinguish

the difference between an accidental word
& the accidents contained
in words     what I look for
for example     the silent letters     what I look for

the placid disappearance
of the meat as you read its material
it's why to write a book
means to forget as much

or much more than to
remember     remember
when I decided to say these things
out loud     how you had to learn to break

the lines by picturing their shape
it's like a second
hand choreography
it's like the sound of walking

into a cloud     collecting angles
of light at periodic moments
makes me want to ride
the back of a neighbor's tree

it's three or four in the morning
a hand against the wall against
which I am listening
another color coming toward

the face like breath     let us
rehearse the requirements
of form in the lyric essay
which is to be read as a novel

can you remember all of it all of it
a tendency for my sentences
to stutter   
as what happens when you begin to

conceive a year as six hours or six hours
as one vast year
I am coming to what I will
be next

__

{HOW NOT TO SWEAT MEN}

a prayer to the god of open-mouthed
commutes. the god of transfer
is available at the next station

the god of remembering
this at 1:33 am or of learning
french by an excess

of undergarments
on exits there
are not enough verbs to spare

on openings I like to close
my eyes & picture
myself there. there

there. which is to say all
of the above & not either. & also
something

I like to say
to comfort someone
suffering

from some
fundamental lack
all failure as failure

of the imagination
& anyway
there is music

in every failure
if you listen hard
I     like you

am a sinner with feelings
for the sins I have
committed are sins

of feeling. I have
felt myself grow
into it

in every act
like you I am learning
how to sweat like all the rest

of paris which
is to say to learn
how not to

sweat. men
dapper in 95
degree weather as I stretch

my body toward relief
like you I am relieving myself
as I write this. in the way

that allows me to escape
my body as I write. which is why
I write in the first place. like you

__

"Beautifully installed revelation...a trailblazing marriage of science and art...the images collected here read like a love letter from all [the moon's] ardent suitors." —New York Times
 
"A superb exhibition" —New York Review of Books
 
"The blockbuster show of the summer" —New York Post
 
"Ambitious, provocative and lively show" —Wall Street Journal
 
"Shockingly beautiful" —New Republic
 
Further reading: Caroline Bologna, "23 Telltale Signs Someone is American, According to Europeans," Huffington Post, November 16, 2025.
 
Outside these texts, I am working through a book on first-generation consciousness that is also a book of forgetting.