Being a Square Is Not Enough
You are a helium balloon episode she tells me
And, you need a square
Have I told her I am drawn to rhombicosidodecahedron?
She has 120 edges No lover is solid
No human can have that many faces
Until I collided with her
In another video I am a frozen vegan cake
In which she keeps eating and eating me
Until what is left of me is no longer savory
I am just a debris of softness, flour , shortening
Widening my Scandinavian origin for more sugar crumbs
There is an alternative route to rolling me
Over like flat bread There is this thing called humility
Which can stop the bakery of my poor sexual appetite
From inflating I tell her: your vegan diet can’t just be me
I am leavening I levitate I do yoga for 48 hours in the oven
I love you in chicken oil, in duck fat, in zucchini rhombus
I wait for her to take a nap Then I open another video
Of me being cut into a pizza slice with eight edges
This is where I am no longer vegan
Because there is a long thick blanket
Of Torta del Casar DOP Virgen del Prado cheese
Made of raw sheep’s milk lying on top of me
Love is complicated because there is no nobility
In being a noble gas There is no thermonuclear fusion
In eating somebody today & the next day not
There is only one airship in my heart &
It has three bullet holes already in it
Video of Your Pre-Lunch Tour
Your unwashed hair is no monsoon
As I stroke like a dust pan to sweep light into your mouth
I always think there is something militant
About not being able to touch you across the room
From America - from what strength will your lipstick make available
Which I intangibly can’t take forward
Tonight we each take turns teaching each other
How to nail the coffin into an idea
How to connect mother destiny with a sea of karmic particles
How to lower my torso for the angle which could be your gaze
or hip or calisthenic strips
Had I seen you take that ghat ? To give your eyes that much deserved bath
of imperial expansion such orange and gold horizon
Which matches all your hair across the four quadrants of my desire
My face does not mismatch an empty door for freewill
Won’t confuse you waking up in the morning for a spoon of olive oil
How terrible is my tea kettle ?
For refusing to take a reflection as a sign of genuflection
For giving your thighs a small detour of my lower torso
Take your full breasts into my hands
And watch my tongue wave hello to
your earlobe like a repossessed handkerchief
from the fragile mouth of a townhouse
VI KHI NAO is the author of four poetry collections: Human Tetris (11:11 Press, 2019), Sheep Machine (Black Sun Lit, 2018), Umbilical Hospital (Press 1913, 2017), The Old Philosopher (winner of the Nightboat Prize for 2014), & of the short stories collection, A Brief Alphabet of Torture (winner of the 2016 FC2's Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize), the novel, Fish in Exile (Coffee House Press, 2016). Her work includes poetry, fiction, film and cross-genre collaboration. She was the Fall 2019 fellow at the Black Mountain Institute: www.vikhinao.com.