all my goodness has flown—
from the wildflower’s wrath to
my fingers

pressing invisible buttons on
grassy dew.
I

should know this season by now—
dry of meaning and bent metal
into the frozen river.

the note I wrote you was short—
spoke of moons we cannot see
and my rushing ego
drowning mountains
on tiny blue-green surface—
a million

bleached bones
are wrapped in their tired stripes—
now crushed,
miniature,
and multiplied—
many of the many

and the red feathers that float

away.

milk warm and
child rotates backwards in womb

clouds become the drums

angels in the front row cheer
as men fight over screaming throat

woman smokes with dragon—
never before corked *****
and the ash that settled over

this is my innermost truth:
a dwell of birds inside my body

and I think so little of myself

I shred you as cedar
to eat your smell—
a crick of words to ultra face-off
between bone-splitter and bliss
I

am your writer
and my heart’s cavalry
pounds your lips
with sweetness
the

submission of sugar
the

taste of honey
the

number of times
I’ve

had you in comb
buzzing your fuzz-ectomy
into a new mind of flower
to be pollinated
with the lilac breeze
of my going

high-noon sun waits for
ground to catch her beaming child
dresses the hat and feather
canonizes the dead worms
imprisoned in their hardened skins
these

shards of you
sit on my front porch
wide
wide
and I open my arms
to their concrete daughter
now full-grown
and working the night shift
like every bird that flies

into my glass dream

I forgive my dreams cut
in the maritime gloom of your blue eyes—
a rehearsal and hush of dead shells beating in the water

I never knew the binds of you would cuff me for this long—
your naked ocean now overgrown with a different plaque
and somehow more beautiful, younger, and vulnerable

I am the queen of shock and shiver,
proclaims my wondrous mind
I forgive my dreams of loving the invisible
and the seagulls fly
one by
one by

I still skip stones
across your ocean—your foaming white
cut from the butterfly vine
flips the beached fish
into the definition of liveliness
takes to the sun—a pearled pantina of ocean rain
connecting my nose and mouth
into the rainbow vision
of your thin lips mending the
the maimed crab’s claw

this is how I will always think of you
my wishing well babe
neck-deep in sand
the butterfly vine entering your mouth
pulling your tongue to say
those three words aloud
finally, like you mean it
like I want it, the ocean tide
bathing my ankles

I’ll chase you over
backwards and sideways

cover you in chocolate,
peel off your shell,
fill you with another body

I’ll eat you a rainbow
separate the opals,
moonstones,
malachite

love—little girl with scotch-brown hair
soft, eggshell yellow and
crack

oh god...

I'm sorry.