To peek within,
through artery,
like spying through
a window into a room
with two armchairs
and a book of chemistry.

To capture within
the vaulted length,
the sinuosity of entrails
like a mountain range
that forces trees up toward the sky
with perched birds inside them
looking down toward the earth
for the head of a worm.

To glance within
through dilated ache,
while standing outside a café
in front of a mob that clothe
with invisible meaning
the earth and pretend its
burning bone will survive
the excitement of light
as crystal memory
in the pockets of their hearts.

To visualize within,
through hot telescope,
the distance of our truths,
like studying the clusters
of emptiness inside
an amoeba of hope.

To see within,
through the gate of the mouth,
a deeper hole that is glutted with silence,
like a threshold that opens up
not to soul
but to something even more
lost.

Contemporary Poetry