Salt Herring

I brought back a jar of salted herring from Berlin
The tin lid clamped down around the edges, pressed
Like a pie crust. On the flight back I had eaten
Handfuls of fresh fries, and woke covered
In salt, my hands smooth with the grease.
My hands on my face, mixing the oil with the sweat
Or whatever water sat there. My eyes. My hands.
What I saw: the grained blue fabric of the seat ahead
And the gray groove of the tray set back. The voices
Gutturally incomprehensible and soft around me.
No music. No melodies. The sound of the wind
Outside the plane or not the wind but the plane
Moving the air so that the plane was the air:
Plane air, plain air, just what we breathed, just what
We meant by pulling in that soft fume, slowly.

Self-Portrait in Three Parts

1.
We turn the fan outwards to funnel the smoke.
We watch it sift through the blades, above the fire
Escape. Up the stairs, the roof. Painted silver
It gleams like wet stone under the no-sun.

The girls lie there anyway with their eyes closed
On wide red towels, not sleeping.

2.
I have no identity, and you cannot disagree.
Your vision of me is only one version
Of self I’ve had the pleasure of pretending to be.

The me I am alone is still not one with itself.
The hand clapping, etc, all of that, nonsense indivisible.

When it is clear that the voices inside the head
Are only those that my mind has chosen
Then I will learn how to talk with strangers.

3.
When the sweat has already gone inside the skull
The condensation will kill the flies that sleep there.

Wet thoughts lead to bad dreams. That is what they say
when you come to them with bad dreams.
Wring out the rag where the thought was born,
Wring out the rag with both hands, and hard.

If you can find the rag, lay it out
On a piece of hot rock
And let the cloth evaporate.
Let the lizards play in the fluff that remains.