Exquisite Corpse - A Journal of Letters and Life

Exquisite Corpse - A Journal of Letters and Life

Two Poems
by Youssef Alaoui

Author's Links

La Mano Que No Te Toca

Parting the smooth silt
of your undercurrent

Dabbling your liquid soils
your firm crescent fish

Toiling
bare
through your dingy depths

Tangled within your swaying ivies

Sun filters
over
your dappling curvature

I am engaged

Swilling it all
not asking for air.

Night Window;

For the Peruvian
Mummy Children
of Sara Sara

I was aware of you
dreaming and twisting
fretfully sweatily
deep in the night
last night.

Your brain pushed
images from your dream
and broadcast them
against the inside
of your window
it
was like
television
or a movie...

But it was you
there
strangled in your covers
and your forehead
raked up in multiple
inverted vees.

Beaming the images
which I, in turn,
feel compelled
to document
for they were
so tortuous
I found them cathartic:

You followed a child
over a hill of golden
grass under a low
drifting sun in
late summer.

She led you to a deep
pool
in a stream
where she drowned
and we saw her
submerged vertically
her eyes closed

bubbles rising from
her nostrils.
Her dress flowed
dancing slowly in the
current with the long
green plants growing up
from the bottom.

Then you were in your bed
again. Your face
and hair were wet
with sweat.
Not your physical bed.
More like a crib.
Your sheets were the same.

Your tongue
became a slug
moist slender yellow
and left your bereft
head
through your nose.

Your eyes
were apples;
tiny black hard
blind little apples.

And your eyelids
wept and crinkled
like wet tissue
in a failing attempt
to preserve
that which had been
so familiar
in the past
but which is
currently so useless.

Your teeth grew
yellow and thick
I saw them crunch
away with a sound
like chicken bones.

Your penis
was a vagina.
Your vagina
kissed your penis.
Your asshole
moved to the top
of your head

and bellowed
out a grey fog
voicing unpronounceable
ancient languages
staking claim on the diaries
of all other misshapen
sleep-orphaned night infants.

Then you rescued us
with a sip of water
so I recovered
your sleep
and yawned.

But the water
tumbled down from heaven
like clear stainless blood
and clawed
at the sheets bound tightly
to protect you
and at your skin.

The scratches on your face
turned to hash marks
counting the darkened hours
of endless sleep
dedicated to squirming.

All at once
you and your bed
were covered in toads
which filled the window
and eventually emptied.
But now you're missing.

Tonight the window is black.
There's little reason
to stay awake;
and no reason to write
unless
the dream
was mine all along.

I have decided I must
look for you tomorrow.
I will keep watch on your
window.

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