sickness

i would do anything for another fragment 
of fig stories & bare shoulders.
my teeth are cluttered book shelves.
i cup my ribs in the palm of my hand
like a little sparse clam. most mornings 
my fingers are their own instruments.
a piano chews on my gloom with only 
its black keys. i want to run 
like a marble down the big hill. 
please give me another elbow 
to swing from. i take my vertebrae off 
one at a time like harmonica vestibules. 
what is wrong with me what is wrong with me what
is wrong with me.
even my lamp is a doctor. even my 
windows are mirrors. let me tell you 
a song about when i used to have 
muscles. it starts with a clattering 
of kitchen pans & ends with 
just a picture of jupiter. 
i eat hunched over, back bent 
like a wailing flower-neck.
please. i just dream of 
thick afternoons with no pain.
early mornings where my body
used to greet me. my skin is my own
lost lover. a sheet pinned to 
a clothes line. rain coming down
on a november day. a veil across
a doorway. i take a clothes pin
through my collar bone
to hold myself bound. where
will i carry my three spheres 
of motion today? an orbit from 
kitchen to mailbox from bed 
to light bulb. all i crave
is a melon mouth 
& a seed to appear beneath 
my tongue. who should 
i send in my place? who is going 
to plumb my dark for what's left.
only me with a flashlight 
& a half-size phillips-head screwdriver.
i get on my knees. i get on
my back. open myself
music-box wide. hear 
that little metal tune as it says
what is wrong what is wrong what