c a y l i n    c a p r a - t h o m a s

 

from Inside my Electric City
 

[We all feel the curse    of your interpretations.]


[How much saliva]


[As though I'm experiencing a debt]








































 
 

[We all feel the curse    of your interpretations.]

           I meant mine                as in cavity
of precious       metal.  Anthracite.        Asphyxiated

canary.                        Don't come to me
           with that yellow-headed singer             slack
against your palm.                    Don't hum

her funerary march     as you fill the bathtub
            with Cold Duck              & copperheads.  The egg

                        beneath the basement steps
has hatched
                                   into a cockatrice.

Twice now,      she's asked for you                     by name.

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[How much saliva]

                       goes into one conversation?
            How much cement?      In the evenings,

I open my mouth                      for nothing. I open

& receive          your handwritten
list of gods.

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[As though I'm experiencing a debt]

I take the framework of a destination
& flee.               I will no longer admire the sadness
            of others.  Nor my own.
This emotion                   is called somewhere else
people
            are dying.            Is called
use every part   of this world.

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CAYLIN CAPRA-THOMAS is the author of a chapbook, The Marilyn Letters (dancing girl press 2013) and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Sixth Finch, Phoebe, The Boiler, Permafrost, and Yemassee. She lives in Missoula, Montana, where she is pursuing an MFA, serving as a poetry editor for CutBank, and finding evermore uses for free pallets.

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