“i was born to make biscuits”
and so we let him.
flour, butter, one egg, messiest
table in the hole entire county.
mom watches bug and the boys
roll in the leaves outside, and
greg and i drink coffee by the fire
in thick socks and knitted throws.
a burst of the season arrives with
each sibling but we smile anyway,
kisses and cold hands pressed on
our warm cheeks until we're all
the same temperature. pop's biscuits
are done, so we sit and don't say
grace- just thank each other for
the things we have which no one
else could have given us. mom's
already missing the birds, and
wendy says she thinks she found
one of katy's old hats in the back
of her garage last month and she
even brought it with her this time.
we talk and we laugh and the little
boys nap and we just are.
we just are.

what do you call that--in the morning?
between dried citrus fruits, orange and
lemon pinwheels strung on fishing wire
persimmon and crystalized cinnabar
soft bread rolls wrapped in muslin
with filtered sun refracting
through the crown glass
around her head like parhelion--
and she touches the spices
sumac, saffron, fennel, mustard seeds
and she touches the dishcloths
and she touches
and she touches
and she touches.

over the last few months
you couldn't put a number
to how many times i've thought
about you Matt,

how many angry drives I've sped
through the twisted wind channels
of brush hollow and stood at the
outcrop looking towards the dam--

the ungodly mornings spent staring
at my right arm stretched across the pillow
not even thinking about you but also him

this translucent idea of a man that
might exist, thin as a wafer and
constantly fading

how often i pulled up your name
and stared at the trees in my yard
or the sunsets or the moon that
was gratingly beautiful and was
just ******

but the amount of time it
takes my soul to ease into it is
shortening now, and all the
things I missed back then
the traits and bits that
flew silently beneath
the radar are all coming to
light

and I am realizing how blind
it all was, how constructed
the lies were, how I was
never the perfect girl for you
i just tried so desperately to be--

and the strangest people are
speaking into my life at
the most unexpected moments
I don't think i've got you  nailed down--
could it be that it's because you don't
quite know yourself either?

How funny,
how true
maybe all that this was
and all that you were--
a catalyst on the way
to figuring it out
but I shouldn't give too
much thought to the potter
or the ***

you were a blessing either way.

blake said something
interesting, prefaced by
i told you i'm not educated
as if he's begun every sentence
with that since he could believe
himself--

i just thought ya'll had
to be in the same book, maybe
not on the same page--

and he laid his hands out on his
lap as if he were tryin' to read himself

and ya'll are just different books
and i figured
maybe that was so
maybe we were two
fictions in the wrong
section--maybe I was
paperback, maybe I am
prose, maybe I am an anthology
of asides, of footnotes and maybe
you weren't even a book
just a slip of sheet music
to mark my chapter--


dunno, I say, laughing.
but I should go home now.




I should go home now.

there is more to it all
than running away,
which i have always
and never done

i used to cap my
bones in steel
wash them over with
milk, stand at the river's
edge and feel myself sink
in the pierce,
without ever wading
out,
you could call it a somatic
symptom, as if blowing away
were a disorder--
and yet feeling heavy
enough to sink a thousand
ships but they
should know i'm
no Helen.

people only knock

for the warmth, outstay

their welcome,

i've never wanted to

love quickly

i want to lay each

brick, caulk every corner

and be

*sure

that old song by
eric church still
makes me hurt

anything that
moves, the green
grass and the trees
turnin' colors, I'm
sittin out on the porch
beggin' them leaves
not to fall,

I'm not ready
I tell them, what new
girl's soul have you settled
in, made your nest in the
rafters like I did in your ribs--
you remember,
girls like me

girls like me.