who

what if we ran out of
words?
all we have
is our little lives,
this is how you make a
thing
(i was once made)
does it contains all?
on the originator’s
birthday
there is a static full sound
from my rooftop
children’s choir
they sing at the bats
overhead
"i don't want you to not
be here"
while some star
    dictates true north's
skew
    upon leaving
they sing “bey be be bey bey,”
the children don’t know
what
    tuesday is
or does, instead
they chase a
luminary arch, cry
symbols
    half of time is sleeping,
driving, playing,
schlepping,
sleighing, stepping,
    draining, driveling,
    dragging, slipping,
graying, making daylight
was measured by
the presence or absence
of mothers,
grandmothers,
moonlight
    was where letters
were written backwards
upside-down entwined
    inside
looking at the small
things,
    consistently
in old men’s eyes,
magnets
    deny
then pull when reversed,
    little girls
never see so many things
    again
hundreds of whirring
    sounds, iridescent
dust
possibly only visible to
little eyes
i will whisper
    prophetic words
about the end of music,
starboard facing

what

representations might as
    well have been
real (they were real,
    and they
were also
representations)
    i was little
there was a class about
    flowers
and there was a class
about dinosaurs, there
was everything in the
world to learn, absorbed
    through the
navel, exuding through
the skin, there
were likes and dislikes,
    laid out
in rows, morphed and
    reversed over
time, cut cords, there
were combinations
of children, faces melting
    into each other,
    their bodies back into
    fetuses
boys and girls become other
    ambiguities
other people, other auras,
    auroras, but
why nourish words, worlds?
    to track
such transformations is
    exhausting, an
unending
covert labor fueled by
    diagonal spying,
helixes churning,
growing,
    unfolding their zoetrope
just imagine what they
    mean: duncels
wharfs or quays, a
    guilty luck
what i’ve forgotten i even
    remember
i will be a two-masted
vessel by way of the
    transitive
and intransitive, looking
at the cargo:
the olsen twins, hotdogs,
    something about
uncertain body
    temperatures,
    tiger woods at
the airport tarmac, cups
of coffee,
graham crackers,
i will be
    polaris

when

there was a first kiss
inside an egg, (before
cracking
    open it poisoned kids
who still
    play,
    i play) then and even
now
    much later
    blue jersey shorts and 
    bears
emerged from empty shells
    and asked
for help on behalf of a
young woman typing, she
    needed to
double space her letter
    appealing to
the court, by then i was
a choir of rooftop church
    children
unrecognizable as all
them,
    the other
half of time was made of
tirid slptt, we were tirid,
they
slptt, tirid, slptt, tirid slptt,
    tearing splits,
tired spit, tear, id,
slit
the dolly winch secretly
    shaved her
legs shuffling
    on the deck making
desire lines, skittering
back to uncertain
growth, accustomed to
full, new attention
but it was a nice day
and getting nicer
    backwards waves
    uncrashing
shake away to eyes
rolling,
    finally
glorious puking relief,
    a morning seasickness
my rooftop children’s
choir
    narrate their
experience by growth
    soprano what it’s
like to be a baby, what
it's like to elongate your
    limbs
they unfurl scrolls: wholly
    unwritten body

where

polaris is actually two
stars
    (north
and west)
from time
    immemorial
i will be a crucible
typology
i name a dead star oscar
i lived my whole life
in a t-shirt that said “no
matter where you go,
there you are”
how many friends
do i have today,
consistently just as
    many as
the direction as the crow
    flies
where am i? yet another
    half of time is made of
further, endless
measurements,
    speculations,
inference,
    surveillances, tension
frankensteined from
nouns,
    wounds, verbs, ease,
there was a safe way
of the florist matrix, there
was picking
up and being picked up
    again
and again by different
    people who
were attached to the belly
    nerves
long before november 30,
    2000, 7:24
pm, there was a sick
girl's
birthday, dry cake my
    rooftop children’s
choir sing “liek liek” lie,
kill,
eek, in the grand
scheme, there
was a lot of time before
this, bracketed and
    encircled by
    daily oral learning,
blinking, shirking,
shrinking,
    i mastered words that
use short a’s

why

incomprehensibility never
    takes its leave on
our elongated way, we
    thank you
you sincerely start
    tomorrow,
    mid-evening
hand, ark, mask, star, man,
    war, sad,
    which sounds mean
    goodness? and
which its opposite? answer:
    the song gradient
rumbles down with
    reasons, blames
it on clouds, who weren't
    meant to speak,
    but learned the
    morality
of language, decided to sing
    instead 

---

Lily Rose Kosmicki is a person, but sometimes feels like an alien in this world. She suspects she frequently experiences a form of hypergraphia and/or graphomania and she is obsessed with language and the body. She is working on translating years and years of notebooks into poetry, makes cut-up collage poem-paintings, and illustrates creatures with accompanying poems that are (sort-of) for children. By trade she is a librarian at the public library and by night she is a collector of dreams. Her zine Dream Zine recently won a Broken Pencil Zine Award for Best Art Zine 2018.