Conditions Vertical and Conditions Horizontal

Woman, seven months pregnant

	I was the owner
	of one 
	complete house--
	then slow infestation
		needing
	heartbeats, blood, oxygen
		pressing
	for more space.  Certain foods
	were out of the question,	
	categorical
	denial of fried bacon.
	It feeds
	on me.

Man, drinking coffee

	black, hasn't slept
	in days, walks to work humming
	his own lullaby. 
	He is not himself
	anymore, his wife says.
	He is constantly exploding
	objects: lawns spattered
	with dandelion buds,
	a red tractor,
	a mountain of impressive dimension.

Message, on an answering machine

	If I can't find you
	don't look for me.

Anna, upon waking

	finds a toe in her bed.
	Her own bed, her own toe, detached
	neatly from her foot--no blood.
	Other body parts hang on
	precariously, but look
	edible.  Stew of forearm,
	or rack of cheek.

Anna, in the course of the day

	drives a red convertible,
	waves to whistling construction workers.

This is the game

	of others who learned to sign
	in exact arrangements
	of onezeroonezeroonezero. Order
	is the essential idea here.
	Don't be dismayed: the roadside
	is littered with car cadavers,
	still shiny tail fins	
	jut into the air.  Grass gets
	slicker and more fatal.
	One moment
	of inattention
	and Anna's car spills
	over the bridge,
		bonfires 
	into a spray of water and metal.
	Her ear floats to the surface
	twenty minutes later and sails
	down the Ouachita, reaching
	the Delta by mid-morning.

I

	cut my heel in the shower,
	bled through seven layers
	of gauze and white tennis socks
	before I called my lover
	asking what to do. Stop
	kneeling he said.  I'd offer
	you my comfort, he said,
	but my flesh is being eaten
	by termites.  I'll leave you
	with this, he said, I'm afraid
	to speak, afraid of this state
	of logical permutations, afraid
	that the trees will grow faster
	than the poison I pour 
	into the earth.  So this is it
	then, I asked.  No sapphires
	for my brand new bed.  No
	eruptions of hunger, madness, words.
	I keep hearing
	words, there
	must be
	termites in heaven.