bruise map

let's go along the gulf. the jupiter pillow
at the end of an elbow. i take a sandwich 
& chew like a new ruminant. the wound
becomes the land on which you have
to gather huckleberries. on which the house grows
aching & without any doors. i remember
every collision. i can't even manage 
to name culprits anymore. often for me 
it has not been with it. they've been eaten too
or else they are somewhere carrying 
a picture of me beneath their tongue. 
has anyone ever escaped their own blood? 
i point to the weeds. i gesture at the mountains. 
a topographic map. a traveler runs their fingers 
in circles around the knots. i buy ice skates.
winter is purple for me. there are
lands uncharted where the bruises get
as dark as molasses & yellow as beaver teeth.
there are lakes that thrum with only 
the names they've given themselves. 
lovers are always asking me why i don't
have any words to talk about emotions. 
i take them into a mirror room. pull a chain
to snap on a light. there we go walk
on the bruise map. barefoot 
as the other planets' moons. the ice bridge.
the fist & how warm it gets when closed.
broom handle held high & brought down
on my forehead. i do not go 
to that mountain. it is for the lizards
& the night monkeys & sometimes briefly
it is for a knife. the other kind of fracture.
sometimes clean & other times a bloom 
of blood beneath skin.