Poetry

was a rope. A gold band, twisted with smooth knobs. She, and my father, and their mother, and their neighbors, and their village, left behind orchards, the fruit & farmanimals, because the occupationbecame close enough to taste.Natural rope splintersthe tongue. Because they remember it, unintentionally,my body aches for it too. It’s notluck, that I sit …

a shore without memory is a shoreme without skin is a visual aid for what a human is notmy veins alphabetize when they meet open airmarrow unfurls into pure datamy foreign rutilant organs are pulled and reversed as tarot there is a message in me that honeys at the earit whispers from behind my abdomen …

i know your voice as slaughterhousei know your shape as serrated crescendo i know our names as they curse the curve of time and rot within empirei know your kiss as pockmarked silence a split hammer a battered anvil cochlea masoned with cloti remember your hand at the base of my neck vibrato/full of intent …

I am wearing the pendant you made / blue shimmer, edges worn down / I slip my finger through the center, curl around the sides / each made for a different sister, each cut from the same piece of clay, each given different selkie coats of glaze / oh, what are you creating? / stolen …

Architecture in the harp of the heart. I make my hands into watering cans. A friend cooks Condolence Lasagna. A neighbor neighbors her elder. Each day, the world asks to be born. Each day, the world wants to know who will mother the world. As I write this, garden ants snatch legs up my arms. …

We return to our remains, to what is left of usI can’t hear it. I break the voice inside me; I break it and stab it til it screams, then doesn’t screamI know that I’m going crazy when I realize this exhaustionWhen I go back to who I really wasI do not mean the place …

We were told to ground the rattles of snakes into a powderand mix it with water to form a solutionthat will ease the suffering of childbirthand prevent the foliage from turning red and yellow. The pigments rise to the surface if leftunchecked, drawing in every last packet of light that it can, pocketing the change …

They would have named you something different if you hadn’t arrived greased and furred. In the birthing room, each attending mouth drawn into every contortion of O: grief, awe, horror, growl. Your eyes were filmy, your belly radiating iron heat. Someone fed you fabrications by the spoon-full about what you could be. Love was altered …

Fish fry. Lent day. Say grace. Amen. Eat good. Eat lots. Rich laugh. Honeyed. Moonshine. Mud cake. Cookout. Kinfolks. Deep fried. Pig feet. Pig lips. Pig tails. Blood test. Big pills. Small pills. Blood stream. Sickhouse. No salt. No salt. Eat salt. Prick thumb. Draw blood. No salt. Eat salt. Kidneys. Blood clots. Put away. …

In Vancouver I ran on icyroads each morning, then stood in the shower, scalding, thoughtof slipping. I watched the kettle til my eyes teared up,the light blurring, I made instant coffee, drove south through the redwoods, embarrassed by words, their poverty: rocks in the water like petrified whales; Joni Mitchell; sweet grapes on the passenger …