love a girl like pyrite
when you found me in the mines
shook me from your baskets
saw me glint in the sunlight
said my  irises shifted like tiger's eye
i was never what you thought

love a girl like pyrite
if she's your gold then i'm a
shade of amber, a copper quarter
if I was hard then she is soft and
quick in your hands like a gardner snake
faint and without teeth, tangling through
the grass and you love the silent chase
the girls that flip belly up and
kiss your corners, kiss your
borders, rub away the ash
and lay themselves over your grenades
your sticks of dynamite you blew
me away with

love a girl like pyrite
because I was a fool's gold,
the normal luster of something
grand, sieved through your tables
back into the river, the unspoken
daughters of not-good-enough
lying in wait, picked up by farmers
by men who sell, who hock, who
pawn, washed down in Vindicator Valley
run between thumbs, turned up amongst
rocks the ordinary, run-of-the-mill
we can only be imitators of
the greatest


love a girl, who's fool's gold
would you find her?
would you keep her?

this message has
been on my lips
a train of thought
stuck to the tracks
woven between teeth
a mesh of necklace
lodged behind my ramus
a chain of words working
into my tongue
i am convinced there is
less light than I thought
that i have never smoked
a cigarette in my life but
i am blacker and deeper
than any ravaged lungs
made of  about as much water
that sees Atacama
on a good day
and I am

raging.

those wings on your
back weren't meant to
keep you up forever--
even eagles land
clouds dissipate
and great travelers
come down off the
mountains.

do all wild things
return home?

I used to say I wasn't--
that the blood of kinder animals
ran through me
                                      (although that may still be true)
I think i've bed down with coyotes
made off with predators
dressed in spots and stripes--
but could i have reaped
the benefits of a life so severe?
                  we are all wild in our own
varying ways
                                 not all of us howl or rage
some of us leave home and
feign courage, pull on our
faces, don't hunt or scout but
wander, and the others all
convene and say
              you are so unlike yourself
and the worst don't even ask and
say they like this new you--

this new you
a lost you
wild is not always
is not allways.
and I am not always

picking my way back
with little knowledge
of scents and markings
the lay of the wind
is all foreign
because I am not
truly a

wild

thing.

all i've wanted is to sleep

to tip over and land
soak in distilled whiskey
like arthropods preserved
in amber, except me
lost in an extended
trance, dissolving
into resins, ointments
oils--

i don't want to feel trapped
i fear me leaving more
than anything else,
me leaving to beat
the traffic, catch the
train, board the bus
to Abilene
a roundtrip
god I'm
tired of tryin'
so
hard.

“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.