Meet Me at the Center of the Earth

— after Nick Cave’s Soundsuits

 
 
1.

bodies name

the sound they make
all this hullabaloo

an outstretched arm

festooned with ivy sequins
 
 
 
 
2.

bride of tessera

decor

becomes

body —

history’s second-

hand
sweaters

 
 
 
 
3.

tresses shake

neon

yellow

orange

red

kin to

the abominable

fabulous

straw anemones

swish

shells flower

abounding

 
 
 
 
4.

music sewn

in rosy sequence

glass songs

tumult

our shores

 

5.

dance a dress

of buttons

tree of

a child

and guardian

twirl, twirling

 
 
 
 
6.

birds sing —
this head

over

my own

— ceramic songs

look out

a cat’s eyes

heaven and hell

is armature

 
 
 
 
7.

your unlocked

eye

quickened

cosmos

coin

gilded blood

haute couture

 
 
 
 
8.

belles-lettres —
phantom skirt

sweeps Venetian

waves red, blue

golden water

story worn
outside

 
 
 
 
9.

starry —

hum absorbed

in skin

sky —

so much

glitter beach

 
 
 
 
10.

live glass

flowers

bottle caps

spangles

twist ties
raffia

rattles

seeds
awaking

turbulence

inside this Earth

gleaming

brocade oceans

 
 
 
 
______________________________________________________________

Candy Shue received her MFA from the University of San Francisco and was recently awarded a Kundiman Fellowship. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Drunken Boat, Versal, Spiral Orb, Eratio, The Collagist, Switchback, Poemeleon, and Washington Square, and her book reviews can be heard on Poet As Radio.