It gets More than Better

By James Caroline

Tall, southern, wetland eyes
pulled up from the kiss of mud
my favorite door swung open.
He walks in again and I can smell
the buttermilk
the slow rise of his mother realizing
she had something special.
Something to rise from the war and set
to the world and I imagine her, like my mother
teaching him to fight–


First, you remember everything. You watch
and you wait, angel
until their back isn’t turned.


He orders a dark beer, claims it’s
spiced, a wash of currant in common glass.
I can see the kitchen heave
blackened catfish, the new cock ring
a sheet-less air mattress where we leave it
dripping piss and cum.
There is a hollow in the cheek of those broken
a slick to the palm of those who grew up gun
drag race, cliff dive, who thought
they might kill me if I tell.
A black eyed prayer
just let me make it out of here alive
and here, this bed
moved between all those flight trails
gas stations and the truck drivers, kind
enough to say
Heading back to your family or running away from them?
Not that it matters.


Not that it matters.
But I wanna say, Mamma
he knows how to shoot.
I can smell the stilled wind in his chest hair
the thick a tide would leave.
I can feel the claw trap of his ass from 5 feet away
the way his nipples would butter my lips
his rise when I cross my legs to stay.


I am not afraid.
I am body and body and body.
I could be gone.
I am so far from gone.

8 Arms of Color

By James Caroline

his tank is too small.

The octopus, its limbs
examples
of a flexible arm with unlimited degrees of freedom-
begins with a wave, an extension and roll,
propagation of a bend from
the base of the arm to the tip.

there is no place unsuitable for reaching.

Kinematics (position and velocity) of extension;
the bend moves in a single linear plane
connecting the center of the animal’s body
with it’s desired point of touch.

brace yourself when reaching for the immovable.

The reversal potential of the energy used for movement
-10mV.

2 arms, when extended together in the same behavioral context,
will demonstrate identical velocity profiles.

this is our muscle key; where
we reached together—where a hand was extended
and found another reaching.

Color change is initiated by the eyes.
For camouflage, 3 bags containing different colors in the skin
are adjusted individually until the background color is matched.
Coloration also reflects mood:
white for fear, red for anger, brown for, currently, well adjusted.

* * * *

the animal shoots melanin ink at threats,
finds food in hard bodied bottom feeders,
ignores their claws.

They learn by trial-and-error experience.
They learn from sight by comparing edges, orientations, shapes.
They learn by touch.
Tactile information is stored in a different area of the brain than visual.

our fights always end with a kiss

lids, locks, the building of walls,
all learned and mastered
by venomous, soft bodied invertebrates,
solitary magicians
in the deep.
They do not swim the surface.

We each pushed a hand to the glass,
awestruck by the curling of soft limbs and suckers,
our free hands clasped,
4 legs holding us up,
like magic
in our own deep water
with pressure,
and colors that change
as we learn of holding.