For you Listerine poets:
Nobody wants to gargle with the ancients?
From the lowest points of the earth, we mix lead, borax, sagebrush.
We write with our crooked fingers on the walls, in ash, in bloodstone.
We keep the prayer wheels spinning in seclusion
And light the incense steady.
Packing, everyday for our holy move.
The women too, providing vulval health. Support and clean water.
Dirty mouths, fingernails, unscrubbed undersides doing the work.
Taking on the suffering and moving through the suffering, to teach later.
From some lighthouse, we can spot the sandy dollar daylight inauthentics,
And we begin to say prayers for them, forgive them, and dive deeper into exhaustion.
We will always work for you, to bring what is low and unseen right up to your eyes.
Healing from the sewers, karma eating, processing.
Working by nightlight and working by the secret stone to pacify your intestinal sins.
Cooling. Tepidarium, fridgidarium. Blanching mercury and dust of serpentine.
Doing the work. Processing.
The owl in the cave. The owl also on the road.
For you Listerine poets: Do you know how tiring the work is?
Do you know our backs are breaking? We are always bent downwards.
Curling necks, twisted fingers, sore fibers under watered and under cared for.
We love your fantastic borrowing. Your unconscious keeping-center.
Your hoarding, picking choosing centers.
Your wholesome daylight wandering.
Somewhere, tucked away in an lowground library, the rites of Isis,
Working through us in form.
Healing funnel. Processing funnel. Focused and performing always.
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