—for Liêm Vũ Đức

I am the animal between a dream and a bathhouse

dreamer. I am the animal between your legs.

I put together a world in demand as pleasure.

[Consider: the steam cools down, forgets to soothe.

Consider: the steam is my breath.]

I am the animal you left in an island

twenty years ago I could leave where I am

and still be the animal you left just now.

I am the animal you don’t want to see.

Always I am the animal who dreams so much

I see you everyday. Hello there. Feed me.

I am the animal you know very well.

[Spill the adventure song. Let the tactical dance. Spread your home,

your absence, the abyss in everything beautiful.]

I am the animal who groups chandelier clouds

to form a fist and punch a plane inside which is my

mister animal who has yet to know he is my name.

I am the animal who groups chandelier clouds to form

a punch, a plane, a crash. Something saying debris here,

fragments there, your lover in the form of a vacant dream.

I am the animal who wants to assemble and be assembled.

I group things, I form something, I punch my animal

self with the biography I’d like to believe I could finish

living. Because I am the animal promised to have a life.

I wish you all the best, I tell my hurt.

[Insert those who precede. Insert rhythm and a violence that teaches it.]

I am the animal who stands inside a bus. I imagine

a murderous smile. I am the animal who knows everything

about a bus jam-packed by imagined passengers except

how to sit for a murderous smile. I am that rhubarb standing

all the time. I am the animal who waits to be taken on and

down. I am the animal who believes one of these terrorists

has learned to be you. My name is here and I will follow you.

[If the unconscious were a wild boar, listen. How the mind of lone-

liness revises me. How my mind revises you like a tooth above fire.]

I am the animal inside a telephone booth.

I am the animal who leaves my mobile phone

a message. I am the animal who would say

there’s another punishment at home preparing the attic

in a time most infinite to dejection, especially to love.

I listen to quotes and inhabited jungles. I am the animal who receives

all my wisdoms. If I could unlearn them. If I could learn.

[Choose another name for me and speak it above my wound

that is your final self. Then, let the hospital flowers bloom again.]

I am the animal who dreams to be the animal that bites its owner.

I am the animal who should not die unless you are healed.

I am the animal and you are not healed. I am. You are.


- photo by Jacques Smit