She said that we’re born bad, unable to rinse / the dirt from our blood

Outside, the night sky is / writhing with spirits

But / it was the breath / that kept coming back

“that iconic neck, existing / purely for beauty’s sake— / until you take your picnic”

I have one breath left and I’m learning / how to say it all at once.

A farmer or baker could have served just as well. / There are many figures of speech.

When daylight breaks and enters cracks / open a window with the sheer force

Three winters and a spring / hung in little flags above his bed.

Suppose a woman is truth / and truth a mirror

Best to remain unannounced / to rest nestled against his large shoulder.

let’s hear from the melodic nugget/one more time; if i turn/
to the fragment of a kiss

I tell you it’s the flower of death./ The flower that reposes/ with words shut into the old.

A running dog/ Tries to strike/ The stagnated twilight

memory is another flowering of imagination, / seductive as any other beauty and why

one can eat / memories too / but still expect / to starve

Because I’m trembling, because can it be true? / Is this a dream? / Because of the delightful irony / That you—are not a he.

Now more than ever is time to wake again / and run with cousins across scurf to the barn / to dislodge chickens from their roosts

It’s dangerous to lie down / mid-day, late March and dark, / a heavy, wet snow falling from the sky

And the turkey burned dimly against / the urgency of distant and trailing lightning. / Burned against the absence of rain. / Burned and lit the edges of cool sand blue.

the mile markers, the billboards roofing houses / with offers of adult toys, gas / and oil bathed potatoes.