enfolded

we walking around circles in a claustrophobic

christmas present
hidden too well, frozen melted &coagulated

never opened, clutched,

living with our noses to the windowsill
for creeping outside air that might somehow have made the trip

air limping inside inside

the doors stick, painted shut, repainted, the wall is soft with repainting

voices rattle around until they have lost all distinction, even abrasion
      becomes part of one thing
parts moving against each other are the same part,
parts are not apart, they are together as the edges of the sky,
even high pitches somehow run underneath like water through the basement
      walls
(the shrill has no power of puncture)
like a churning rumble,
like hypnosis,
like a jackhammer, a repetition,
like a shriek, like a vertical line,

moving parts are not moving, are staying in place,
moving the motion of static
crawling over itself, turning in and in and wrapping in and in.
and in and in and in, in.

the resting wrapped space settles in layers
moving through time's settled silt, fingernail soft scrapings of paint,
dust made of skin, space sludge, repetition,
the absence of vacancy.

we kept each other awake

(how much longer?)

wiping dust from open eyes
shaking shoulders of drowsing near desert denizens
allowing the residue of passage to dull significance
gathering desperately in our own wrappings the energy to wrench
the other from landscapes of despair, wrench
from the wrapped blanket (as we secretly bleed into each other like wet ink)
wrench from the twisting blanket suffocating significance, again,
each thing of a piece with another, with wishes,
with waking, wrench to waking, keeping each other awake

even when it is not night

noses to windowsills, separate windows,
forgetting to blink, forgetting we know how to move,
wrapped in swaddling,

disbelieving a stray dog.

the person that later became ideath wrote this in 1995
it's better if you read it out loud listening for pace.