Autoparenthesis I & II

Autoparenthesis I: The sooner the line is cast

At the last moment

my attention snagged

on the pewter anchor

dragging partial moods

martial and marital

across the pure unknown

           )

Had I not noticed

the model schooner

suspended like a moon

in its crystal mouth?

 

Autoparenthesis II: The catch

The beach is a crescented mile beset by bright stones

and each is quite unaware of its contagious chatter

 

One night I got very quiet in the foamy interlude

 I cupped this clueless hand to my ear (

  and held my breath for a Phrygian note

   that would fly from the distant crests

    and score the rippling of the sheets

    and sift the dappled floor and pointless distance

   and pluck my life from an amber bottle

  and conform to the map of the octopus

embedded in mute creases, soaked pages

 

I felt for my ear's mouth, echoing in curled shells

then my eye's mouth, porous with red currents

and my right hand's mouth, afloat on reflexions

my nostril's mouth, my upper lip's mouth

and my cuspid's mouth

netted in my probing tongue's mouth

sinking further and further back into my soft palate's mouth

until a single word jolted me awake