Poetry

The tree has no choice but to have its heart
exposed as I coax my mother to sleep.

You can start anywhere, with anything.
The tap of your fingerprint on an
unsuspecting ant. The release of a rope

I blame chance, that reprobate,
for my slide and spin and slow-motion
carom across both lanes.

The fig tree has fallen in love with the place in the yard
that separates neighbor from neighbor. I didn’t ask permission
to

find a recipe, one that calls for
flour, salt, wounds, and
tiny daggers.

The problem is that
I can’t tell him what
I think about the fact
that he died.

asphyxiation; aliens, from mars of course; black cats, the
bad luck kind; drowning, amidst those who drowned before
me & the muck that is decay;

She’d anoint the dock with blood
And baptize the gills to save my
White mouth from swallowing

It’s a miracle we survive at all,
I say, as we walk the cases,
wincing at a colon as big as a stove pipe,
scowling at ribs deformed

bare feet in the grass, white tee-shirt,

palms up, gathering what fell to earth.