from Leap Day

pinch and roll
a doll               unjointed          fashioned
from hair                     the clog i stop

by scooping out the shower’s drain
as hot water kneads the tightness
in my shoulders
pinch and roll

a shaggy caterpillar

it too is bootstrapped by fat

 ξ

i tend to forget the basic fact 
of         windows          what and how 

they screen                 until a sentence

of soap bubbles hands me over 
to the custody of an afternoon 
spent taking care of what 
i can manage while 

this outlook                 snags

 ξ

the green of an unfrozen sea 
becomes a parking lot’s quicksand

white or yellow
the lines 
diagram a hull                         oily 
they lay out a frigate’s ribs

can sand thaw

here                 a sea does

elsewhere
i understand
the conformities 
of debris

 ξ

anything                      but a slow profusion
of fits and starts

the trick i missed 
was mistaking time’s passing 

for a trick                    or more 
or less                                      i don’t fuel time’s
haphazardness

i know
yet it exhausts me all
the same 

can time recall                                    anything
outside of what we archive

castles are too often
confused for palaces               the latter
must be defended

the former defend

ξ

walking           pocketing
nickels and quarters 
of body heat

i smell 
the smoke of many
fires 

maybe
all the fires

ξ

Joe Milazzo is the author of the novel Crepuscule W/ Nellie, two volumes of poetry — The Habiliments and Of All Places In This Place Of All Places — and several chapbooks (most recently, @p_roblem_s). His writings have appeared in Black Clock, Black Warrior Review, BOMB, Prelude, Tammy, Texas Review, and elsewhere. He is an Associate Editor for Southwest Review and the Founder/Editor-In-Chief of Surveyor Books. Joe lives and works in Dallas, TX, and his virtual location is http://www.joe-milazzo.com.