Heavy Feather Review: three poems
the idiot imagines the last year as her last on earth (at last)
i watched my dog disintegrate, drank more water than god.
thought about divorce but didn't. get divorced i mean. imagined
what it would be like to move a sofa. i didn't move a sofa.
didn't do a single puzzle i didn't want to do. i listened to children
saddled with debt & a dying planet speak of sex like suffering
in the middle of a death drive. bit my tongue & learned my lesson.
touched a prickly pear though i swear i didn't mean to,
i'd only meant to touch it. wrote the alphabet with my ankles
maybe 300 times, maybe ate less meat. i think i meant
to eat less meat. ate more shrimp despite the shame of it,
fucked & fought, remembered the time i got caught at camp
in a lie about having a boyfriend. confessed minor indignities
i could have died without mentioning. i kissed my friends’ faces,
took good advice, gave less advice. sat parked in the garage
to hear the end of a song i'd listened to twice—no, thrice—
in a row. allowed myself longing, learned to lower my voice
& screamed. tried my hand at baking bread, failed three times
at baking bread. i wrote just one obituary. kept my hands so clean
they bled. called my mother by her name. said out loud i’m struggling.
i let myself go soft, for once, i let myself grow softer. slept.
my god. i slept so well.
another year
a child drew me not-a-horse & asked to braid my hair.
i fed my friends dried cherries. spent whole days
in the southwest sun, didn’t get a single sunburn.
knew an un-nameable god the night i dreamt
my grandfather dancing. two hundred days
or more, did work i could speak of. put my hand
on the shoulder of who the fuck knows. i didn’t
have a plan but i did have a panic attack
in a not treeless room in mexico city, chased
by six hours of young mezcal beneath a jacaranda.
spoke bad spanish in that secret garden & nobody
called the cops. best i could, i’ve loved what i can.
you’ve seen me trying. i didn’t miss california
in a way i could speak of, broke three nails,
paid a billion bucks in taxes—would have paid
a billion more if it’d buy a kid a vegetable.
declared i’m done with math & asked my father
to go easy, please. i jumped in two lakes & spent
two weeks in bed after one reckless morning,
stack of pancakes for the table. i stayed still
& felt foolish, sweat & i slept, i wouldn’t say well,
but i lived. walked up a mountain that wasn’t burning.
no other way to say it
kindness isn’t enough i need
to burn down a courthouse
til the insides are box elders
untroubled by the whole
white world left to its own
undoing by extortion.
i’ve made an enemy of wasps,
protect me, an enemy
of empty calories, christ
alive, i wanted peace before
i wanted hummingbirds. now
i leave out nectar & listen.
the trill, the flash, a flame.
