Anders Villani

Amateurism (or Youth)

boy a work in progress      /

not work as in exercise

                         though this too      /      boy smoke

bees dream      /      boy’s name

sidereal      /      guttered candle      /      more

resistance than it’s worth

                                                           resisting      /  

not work as in piece of

though this too      /      boy voice

assonantly      /      boy’s name a wrecking

                                             ball meek as cannons

children climb      /      limbs cold

or hot as the bronze    /      scrape

-hoard under nails

                                             for after      /      not work as in master

though this too      /      this more

/      boy the transplanting of

feijoas from a front yard

to be slabbed into buckets     /      this fruit

                                             in wait      /      boy voice

/      boy the confidence of one

word that won’t resist      /      one

heap of salt in a cast-iron pan

                                   nearer      /      nearer the mercury

at which it corrodes      /      purifies      /

not work as in absence

though this too      /      this less      /      boy

                         progress’s ghost      /      boy behind

the name in the water      /

Lilies

Now the weeds must be cut back

I can tell you—I lose sleep over time

cutting back my beauty. It’s not clear

what’s beneath it. Not clear there’s honour.

There may be peace beneath it. There may be the might

to admit I can change nothing, or not much,

which is a way to say peace. Every

girl my age gushed about how hot you’d be when you were older.

You were shy. Already worthless. It must’ve been tough,

choosing where your hands touched

your sundial as that praise nicked you

back to sham beauty. Back to me. I was talking

auras in a bath with a stranger. Cast-iron, outdoor tub.

Broth-clear night, tea lights, casuarina shadows, citronella-oil

lilies on the water. They saw mine. Felt it

as calm. I said shock. If you and I know anything

it’s how to dispute praise like an ice bath

is to lavishly hear it—that we are not not listening

may be our candle, our bond

in the back shed beyond beauty and guilt. They were eyeing me, my stomach

hairy like Dad’s, like yours, mossy

from their genitals. Were they seeing me as pure

object? Forget good brother. They were and

was that alright. It was all I wanted.

Cones

Silkworm, threading fine golden

shoulder hair into a shagpile rug

for hours in a trance, stripped even of nakedness,

slick with vanishing’s friction:

                       When has he dreamt?

When he saw the children with silk

          gaits approach, fall to their knees, hands

          drills for the hole from which they pulled dancing

worms and ate parts of them, learning disgust

was a pact, like money, like beauty.

Learning beauty. When has he swum upriver towards

as impossible a source as them?

When he smelled blackberry bush on fire.

When he saw grass threaded through a long-haired

cat’s shit as silk. Folks will be getting home. He should move.

Movement’s silkworms pinned

between orange cones, banned; the illicitness

of fanning a perch tail still

cool with life. When has he dreamt

                                 anything less than his life

that might let him see his life?

                       What silks would you thread from it

if you saw it, the rug asks, the black

-eyebrowed lover asks in a voice message.

Meaning: do this when you touch it.

Do unto silk as silk does unto silk.