special delivery
by Joseph Milford

I found an ingenious way
to bite off my own ears and wait
until the blood of sound  drips
down the contour of my jawbone
and makes a beard of the Word.

And the technique of being
marsupial unto myself, a spirit
in its pouch and its subtle nuances
sometimes sublime antics, a pro-
crastinator of space and time.

I am the philoso-spy for you.
I will help get you off to
a particular erosion, a metaphoric
wave encroaching.  I will get
your rocks off one way or the other.

A flatbed full of gravediggers
and books comes up the drive.
I can’t make the payments, I say.
No matter, they start unloading
the truck on the walkway.

I sign for the stuff;  what else
can I do?  Makes no difference.
These leaflets have been
initialed by the centuries.
I hang the invoice on a nail

inside the front door
like a hospital clip-board.
I grab the first text and begin
to read all of the words
I once could have written.

Other poems by Joseph Milford in ActionYes #2:
I let the reins go
On the edge of the initiate’s fingernail lies the secret longitude, the lost Parallel
the somnambulist
Fossilized Roadmap
my first semester
a way of getting there