I am gradually learning to speak
a loud my wants into the air hey
siri pull up
booty pix
since anything
that can be called
to mind can be
enjoyed I have
gone far too
long without a meal
as the eyes
meet the moon I met
your face
massaged by the wind &
in looking I felt something
somewhere
between obscurity & obscenity
here’s the mind coming
to awareness again after
the carcass wrecked with fever
I used my writing hand
domed my torso to insinuate
a new shape or body parts
of speech & these
ribbons of sun against
a just-opened frame to feel
the warm jets
go on & on looking
for another energy source or doom
scrolling until & with leopard
intensity
michelle pfeiffer decapitates
seven straight mannequins in a single
take
mosaic of word-signs
levitating against
the cool color
less screen
I toggle to little
effect conjure
what vanna white
sees in her sleep
green glass shattered
on the asphalt & adolescence
textured
upskirt revery so
like an unwrapped lollipop
I am better taken as reward
a convincing muscle or conviction
of image as it re-
aligns with sound
snow wintering
the peopleless
beach as dimples
across a chin & my quads foam
rolled at room
temperature our ghost
given company of a camera
& the choice of jojoba
or coconut to facilitate
a metaphor
my secretarial task to log
these webbed hands sodden
then one clenches & tips
the face back for
the mollusk’s seed to ask
was it surprising
for you? neck slicked
in each other’s
perfume we each
cling
to dream brought moisture
& the heaving
plea for benthic
collapse again
I move from oil
to solar try to wrap
myself in consent of turning
rock into rock clay from clay
the most minor gesture
of style & grace as you kept
your knees bent & recast
the mouth of your aperture
how I am overtaken
by the false laughs at parties
limitations of the I
in the photograph
Chris Campanioni’s work on migration and media theory has been awarded the Calder Prize for interdisciplinary research and a Mellon Foundation fellowship and his writing has received the Pushcart Prize, the International Latino Book Award, and the Academy of American Poets College Prize. His essays, poetry, and fiction have been translated into Spanish and Portuguese and have found a home in several venues, including Best American Essays and Latin American Literature Today. His latest book is Windows 85 (Roof Books, 2024).