decline of regret by Lainna Lane El Jabi

decline of regret
(from pilot sightings)
We have no words for love except the soft tissues of the heart metronomic deep in the cage -Adrienne Rich


Ferality
names of endearment] they lisp inside my mouth

my cursive fingers sound cloudy
teeth punctuating the air barbs, hook [i thought i saw
an endangered language shuddering on pine bark
& tufts of fur caught in splinters



i learned to breathe outline of maps

& the gutters where tight stitching intended ravines

I saw the lines on the back of your slim hands & thought [

a writer’s skin is very old.

perky ungloved, oil plume scarlet polish a month of cuticle moons
scripting places we sophist a starling rivulet you sharp
over the hello of lyric

which is to say desire or possibly erotic



it was messy in your basement apartment, sunless

the professors who lived upstairs would
evening wash your dishes of you said maternal instinct
but Adrienne Rich never said metric she said ][

outside in a naked trench swooping away
empty can of Guinness, the rattling tin braille



i don't remember most hotel rooms
just the toiletries & fists banging doors
dreams of moist mollusks & ice machine chrome swirl
i get poets w their language-locked lips confused
trace
the sugar maps, bees
envious of this deep memory embossed tufts of pollen

golden rum rimmed tongue glint fuck-thick nights 

apex of bones severely livid in swerving weave

blurry belly press on pocked foam

raked by rolling headlights
a clot of arms & legs, what veins are blue

oxygen rich, or is it the lack?

Practical Applications for Poetry

1. the philosophy of the lungs

punctuated, slow long narratives]

2. to learn a body    simple arc flesh nerves     & it is late & i am hungry.

3. it is late & i am hungry.

4. delving loamy line between a marriage & the backs of your knees will quake.
5. to remember snowing in late september all those years.
6. shopping the prophet of mistakes.
7. eclipse my finger star & moon heat as far away as ash, now is not a goodtime.
8. monotony is what lasts one of two cats; legal paper; ice wine halo; cherry pitted.

leaving this city rubbing out sighs erasing

puncture stains     my mouth a four year stitch
lashing apple skins a curled nest
unspooled in the vacant seat w yesterday hair
everything eventually will arrive
its conclusions     i lose my good watch
my feet are naked through february, march
magentic north positions us
straddling over godhead 
secretions on radio wheel [empty air
i catch your eyes tugging my neckline [i forgot to breathe

Lainna Lane El Jabi has lived in Vancouver, Edmonton and Toronto where she completed a Master’s degree in Literature. Her research interests include experimental feminist poetries, Goldrush narratives, and small presses. She has published poetry in a scattering of journals and is a long standing editorial board member of the Olive Reading Series in Edmonton where she organized and participated in numerous literary events. Lainna Lane now works at the University of British Columbia in the beautiful Okanagan valley, preparing to pursue her MFA in Creative Writing while surrounded by unlimited wine tasting opportunities.