My voice barbs. I shy from its pointed horns
afraid to show myself stark-stripped. I listen
in the shower, making the bed, in a yoga class,
cooking dinner, in the dentist’s chair, in my belly
in the unearthed archaeology of the unspoken.
I spent last evening with all the versions of myself.
How cocktail choices change.
I once had a black cat. Now I have
a purring toilet with a long-slow fill.
He loves me and will never love me.
Half the world is burning in wildfires; the other half
has already drowned.
One man do-si-dos out of my life, another bungee-jumps in.
School-boy crush wants to kiss the teacher.
Citrus salmon with jalapeño combine two recipes to delicious.
I don’t share well or concede. It is what it is
makes me spit. Twice.
She warned me: too much wading in murky lagoons,
you are a sea turtle trapped in fishline.
He tells me the obstacle is the way.
Close the distance. Release the heart.
Collapse the crater of cancer like a black hole.
A lone doe in wooded green watches. I wonder
what she wonders about the swath of lavender robe
drifting behind French doors.
Female deer amble, long-necked and languid,
sashay-swing flicking hips.
Bucks prance like parade horses, hoof-heavy, heads high
above muscular girth, balancing the architecture of their sex.
The stumps are dust. Pulverized like coffee beans.
Old roots tripped up the island
of lawn where I will cultivate a garden.
Turbulence
dredges. Fantasy and delusion surface
like long-accumulated trash from lake bottom
vibrates an airplane ascending in altitude.
Drinks spill.
I will assimilate him as oxygen, nourishment,
the sweetest orgasm in every cell
before I let him go, and still, I never will.
