Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi

The Unfinished Plans of the Body

Forehead: A bar of soap the mind is lathering on its washboard

Hands: A clutch of five chickens peck at the bare rib of existence

Ear: An oyster mushroom plucking the harp of its body

Cheeks: Two raw steaks slapped upon the bone-white plate

Brain: A local map composed of teeth and zippers

Hair: Mess of discarded fans; pinholes of light upon the lantern

Mustache: The spool has apportioned a pitiable amount of white thread

Nose: A cork, fiddling with the notion of departure

Eyes: Perpetual stenographers relaying the tickertape

Prayer: The eaves of the house are aligned with blackbirds, which disperse, as the density
of their bones lessens until they are tissues on the air – and converge upon the suet of heaven

Song: The throat jumps for words dangling like remote fruit upon the branch

Dream: A wanderer through columns. A clownfish moves through a slumbering
anemone, that calls out – Sister! Before by the current its limbs swept bare

More Rules

I
Yosefin should not compare her lover to her dog
even if she means to compliment her lover’s loyalty
or his compulsion to protect her
or his handiness around blind relatives

II
If when Yosefin is staring
into her lover’s face (that bowlful
of clean, Arctic milk)
she sees her future

She should not say, when I am near you
the present seems almost meaningless

III
If Yosefin believes she would forgive her lover anything
she need not reassure him in a listing
of perverse and grotesque crimes
he would be allowed to perpetrate

Proving she could easily settle for a monster
bearing little to no resemblance to her actual lover

IV
If Yosefin believes she could forgive her lover
any trespass against her
she should not muse upon a series of hypothetical
perverse and grotesque crimes

Getting herself worked up,
asking, asshole expects me to forgive him what?

And spending forty-five minutes screaming
and breaking plates in her lover’s kitchen