She fell
And she was on the floor
Calling
Forty minutes till I heard
She fell
And she was on the floor
Lying half an hour
Till I pulled her up
And tucked her into bed again
She fell
And she was on the floor
My arms weren’t strong enough
My legs went weak
From so much strain
My shirt was dripping
Making it rain
But
She fell
And she was on the floor
I’d have broken my back for her

White fang piercing soft muzzle, clumsy paws fumble unsuccessfully.

Belly churning

        Gurgling

               Roaring

      And they’re dying to get out

But the only door that’s open

            Is my mouth

And they come flying

      Flapping

                           Sloshing

               Soaking

                      Spewing

         Fighting their way out

In a steaming sunny pile

A heap of butterflies and bile


Since I met you all I can think about

             Is kissing you clean

Square on the mouth

With my molten butterfly breath

             All hot and bothered

My golden belly

Glowing empty

Growing full

Of hot air

Churned by frail wings

                                                     And I can’t help wishing

                           That they’d cause some tidal waves

               Natural disasters

        And ignite some panic

               In your stomach

                                                      Half a world away


     If my world is ending I hope yours is too

            In a torrent of butterflies

                   Vomited out

                        Perpetual stomach flu

Men can't build anything
That compares to the vastness
Of stars in the sky
Or the loneliness of the desert
At night
Depths of canyons
Tops of trees
Sunshine
The solitude of wilderness
Is better than a hymn
Being wild hasn't left me yet
I worship the moon
With the wolves
I run
Barefoot
Through the fields
Of my church

I'm not as good at life as my mom said I would be. She said "Holly, one day you'll go scuba diving and you can tell me all about it." But I got stung by a sea urchin. Not even diving, just walking on the beach, toes wet. And now the aloe plant on my windowsill is leering at me. I'm never outside long enough to get a sunburn. Although admittedly, burning me takes more sunlight than the day ever actually has. I'm never outside long enough to feel like a deer anymore. The skull on the counter, still bubble-wrapped from flight, is sightless and maybe waiting to be painted. And I think when it is nailed up I will feel like a deer again, remembering about the antlers and the fear of guns, without even knowing what to call them.

I love him in the morning
When the sleep rolls off his skin
And is buried in wrinkled sheets
With last night's stale sweet nothings
And my scent

I love him in the morning
When he just barely cracks his eyes
And it's as if he's seeing me for the first time
I think when his alarm goes off
The whole world
Stands at attention

When you wake up in the morning
And there's a note on your mug
"I didn't want to wake you"
"I left your favorite donuts on the table"
"When you sleep you make little sobbing sounds"
(And I think that's cute) is implied
To no longer be your own
To be stealing his deodorant
Because you miss his smell at work
And kitchen smells are not musician smells
And guitar strings are not
Your body
But they might as well be
Because you feel
Every
Tiny
Note
He plays
You would gladly do his laundry
For another song to fall asleep too
Many ways he kisses you
Too many places to count the stars
Too many phantom vibrations
And you think your phone is ringing
Because he just wants to talk about your day
You lose it for a minute
But it's nothing
It's the wind blowing
It's just missing someone
And you're terrified you've forgotten
The shadows his nose casts and
The dilations of his eyes
And the shapes of his words
As they meet your ears
But you look up at the moon
How it waxes
It wanes
Your love goes through phases
That bring in the tides
And wash lost shark's teeth out to sea
Your love changes daily
Loving him is often scary
You are perpetually quaking
Remembering how quickly
Sweet things dissolve in the rain
Sugar wastes enamel
Like time wastes muscle
You could fit a camel through the eye of a needle
Easier than you can handle this
Than you can wrap your head around
Caliente
Having no control
Because you cut the reins
You wanted it that way
And you forgot that fear
Taste like red wine and stale saltines
And being out of ice cream
You wanted it that way
You wanted a love story
You wanted to know that there's no such thing as control anyways
No such thing as
An autonomous heart
And you are ******
Because you could draw the shadows his nose casts
The squeeze of his ***
The way his eyes fluoresce at the sight of you
From memory
You are ****** because he is all you can think about
Past, present, future
I mean, you are seriously ******

We talked about ghosts at work
There are slaves in the attic
Where the floorboards creak
We have seen glasses and plates
break, untouched, Our house was built on Southern ground
in 1861

We talked about premonitions
There were brothers dead in train crashes
Where the steam boiled and metal buckled
And sisters finding body parts in their sleep

When I dream
I see my mother
Are you real? I ask
I can't be asleep again
Just more so now...

She takes my hand with cold soft
fingers she smells like her
hand cream her eyes make little 'm'
bird wing creases her face is smiling
the way it always has she does not
bother with mascara she sits bright
and hunched in tallness

Are you real? I ask
I'm real. She says

I wonder if tonight I'll dream of slaves
The floorboards creaking
Or of brothers
And their hands thrown in train crashes
Landing under metal somewhere
In the woods nearby
Of wholeness,
Whatever being haunted means

I am scared that nothing I do makes a difference I am scared I feel all of history pounding in my head I am happy to see her even being less real, sleeping
**even if she is *more so now

Always a president
Never a vice
Made of sugar and spice
Fresh herbs from your windowsill
I'm convinced if I opened you up
I'd find a smaller
Russian nesting Paula
Hiding inside
Afraid of getting hurt
Enjoying the protection layers afford
I'm convinced if I
Turned you inside out
You'd be exactly as beautiful
And classically radiant
Launching blue and auburn sparks
Into the night
A renaissance painting
Come to life
Madonna in jeans

i. You are lying in a bed with no sheets and you are convinced your friends' parents are alcoholics. You are convinced that your entire life has been woven of slimy, sloppy lies and half truths. And you are convinced that you are a werewolf.

ii. At the chili cook-off two years ago you were wearing red flannel and a bandit hat and you were watching your entire home town get wasted, looking at you like a museum. You are convinced that you have been lied to.

iii. It was a full moon and you wanted to tear your clothes off. Except for the bellbottoms which you wanted to carefully hang up with a finicky crease for next time.

iv. You notice that down the street the Hy-** has closed and you are unsure how to proceed because you know that normal people do not get upset about such trivial things as midnight blue pies and insomniac coffee. You want to sob, but people will talk.

v. You are convinced you are a werewolf and you have been lied to. Everyone is smoking around you and you want only to make it stop. This is where your mother grew up. You say nothing.

vi. Drinks seem to appear in your hands, unsolicited. You have forgotten your ID, but everyone knows you from the papers anyway, everyone knows your family and they sort of apologize for spilling beer on your boots. Sort of.

vii. You crave pies at midnight and this is a "beautiful city" with a square that does not quit and causes quite a few accidents. This is a "beautiful city" filled with people who will never get over the high school quarterback, people who will never admit they have a problem with Stag, though the cans lie all around you.

viii. You are a werewolf and you are convinced you have been lied to about alcoholism. You are upset about the Hy-**, more so than you should be. If you took off your flannel now, you would never be able to get your heart back in your chest and Belleville would laugh itself to sleep.

Every night I have dreams
Of storms
Savage
And ravaging
Everything I love
Tornadoes carrying off my mother
Baby bobbing in the floodwaters
Dad
Under the logs of the house
Calling out to me
And I’m searching frantically
Eyes on the sky
All the time tasting the salt
Of the rain
The sting
Of the cuts in my lips
But there is no lightning
In the storms in my mind
Did I ever tell you I got struck by lightning
Seven times?
Once
On the couch at your parents house
The first time
I felt your heart beat
Next to mine
Twice
Fogging up the windows
On a December night
My tears on your shoulder
Your kiss on my forehead
The third time
So far from home
Wrapped in your jacket
Smelling you on my skin
As I fell asleep that night
Four
We were saying goodbye
Without saying anything
And two hours away
I was thinking your name
Five and six
You pulled me out of mom’s car
Took the keys
Awake in the spare room
All night long
Braiding my hair
Feeling my collarbones
On New Year’s Eve
You brought me home
From St. Anthony’s
Like nothing was wrong
I was still beautiful in your eyes
So you carried me upstairs
Tucked me in
Whispered love
And it was only eleven
Central time
Then the seventh time I got struck by lightning
My heart stopped beating
I stopped breathing
I said “yes”
Imagining the day I’d say
“I do”
And designing my new tattoo
You looked into my eyes
Took my hand
And said “I’m going to take care of you”
“you don’t have to worry ever again”
But now old fears come flooding back
Love washed away like debris
In the scenes from my dreams
I’m looking for lightning
And getting soaked
On my porch in North Carolina
Knowing I’ll dream of storms
Again tonight
Praying I’ll feel a little jolt
From the dark beside me
The voltage running through my skin
Is the same as yours
500 miles away
Asleep in Missouri

Relax. Breathe into it.
You're a hill. You're an immovable object.
You are shaking this whole world
just by being in it.

Breathe into it.
You are going home now.
Like a forest full of birds.

He pieces her together: eggshells
She pulls him apart: saltwater
And outside it is always rose-light
And paper boats and some sweet breeze that nobody asked for
Outside it's all honeysuckle vining up the pasture fence

She falls asleep small against his tallness
He sleeps like a dog in the sun
If the truck keeps running
It's a metaphor for their relationship
If the truck stops it's foreboding

She loves him: pins and needles
He loves her: turquoise jewelry
And they're forever burning like
Matches on fingertips
Forever noticing new wrinkles in their reflections
As the mirror stays the same with age

"Do you still think you're going to marry me?"

"I won't let you get away again," he says,
Knowing she's young and she's fast

She smiles like pawn shop diamonds
Knowing he's lucky to have her
And having never felt so stupid
In her wicked wayward life

Often passion is drawn out of the earth
Through the feet and it radiates upwards
Through the body, tracing the limbs
Finally it bottles at the neck,
Never making it to the head
Where it can be reasoned with

Taking out our corkscrews
We pop the bottles and
Drink in the ecstasy
Like wine

That rough-cut
Turquoise
Pendant pulls my eyes
Downward
I want to trace her collarbones
Delicately
Sweetly
See if she's as soft
As she seems

He stood there
Howling
Yowling
       Cracking his whip
Beating and flailing
His horse in the dust
Collecting flies
Bloating in the sun
And he was getting nowhere fast

Pretend that you are a snake

Pretend that the ground you slither on is live coals,
the lilacs are in bloom,
and there is an old woman after you with a shovel

Pretend the coals burn you, belly down,
and the old woman's rusted shovel finds the back of your neck
like a blade

Pretend the lilacs are the last thing you see
as your head is severed
Pretend the coals cremate you more or less instantly

You can be reborn a bird
if you burn all the heaviness
out of you and you can fly away

You can be reborn with legs and feet to skip across the coals
and you can dance quickly so you never even feel their heat

And when the lilacs bloom
in May on Helen and Constantine's feast day
you can wear them as a crown

As if you've never been burned and never felt the sting of change

I grew up like you

              with you

         taller than you

             a country girl

                     through and through like you

long summer days

        a golden haze

                     of corn

                     and wheat

                      and barley

frozen winter nights

                   instilling us with fright

                            when we'd hear the coyotes howl

                             and spend the next day

                            wondering what they had done

playing outside

           in the mud

          in the sun

           in the fields

            in the smokehouse

           on the roads

there were no cars

              no people

               no noises

       to distract us from our fun

now we're older

     adults I suppose

     I'm still a country girl

But you're an everywhere girl

        I'm too afraid

        to pick up and leave

        my roots tie me down

         and I can't escape

       this life I have not even tried to make

But you

            you're an everywhere girl

                   at home

                        cities

                         towns

                          near and far

                          across the world

                                 alone in concrete glass and steel

                 you are happy

                  you are alive

                   you are filled with wonder

                   so bursting with emotion

                                          that you forget to call me

your sister

                     alike

                         but unlike you

          who doesn't need to hear your voice every day

          your friend in silence

                     your friend in conversation

           who understands your need to adventure

                        who wishes for her own stories

but is too scared to move

                 go too far

                          from what she knows

I wish that I was an everywhere girl too

                         loving it all

                      free rambling

                   independent

                          always smiling

                       You're a record store

                                   full of music

           You're a Wonka bar

                         hiding a golden ticket

                    You're a bonfire

                                       keeping everyone warm

                                 shooting sparks into the night

      Looking for nothing

            but finding EVERYTHING

You're an everywhere girl

                  and I'm learning a lot from you

You're an everywhere girl

            and I want to be too

This is not a poem.

The nation's midsection bloats like a Mississippi fish in the sun.

Whistle blowing
Get up
Go out early
Before the sun starts showing
Before the rooster’s finished crowing
Get out into the outside
Go out into the world

Get up and stoke the fires of your life
They smolder in your sleep
They are smoking
They need fuel
And they need you
Get up and make them dance again
Get up and make them burn
Make them bright again
Go out into the world and keep on burning

Until you fall back into bed at night
Exhausted from the fanning
Burned up from the flames
Keep your days burning away
And everyday
Wake up
Whistle blowing
Get up early in the morning
Keep the fires going
Go out into the world and just keep burning
Burning
Burning

Tuning his piano
Lid open
Musical mechanical
Guts exposed
Ear to strings
Plucking
Humming
When his cat
Knocked the lid closed
Human mechanical
Guts exposed

Darling I want you

Sweet, sticky, hot, and heavy

Honey in my heart

After runs last August
I used to find the church unlocked
And I'd lay on my back
Under the altar
Sweat soaking into the
Blood-of-Christ colored carpet
Lily-scent
Inhaling deeply
I felt the waves wash over me
I felt the earth breathe
And I remembered one night
I was thirteen
Learning catechism
When the pastor told me
"Human and divine are the same things."

I ran to the church last time I visited home
And found the doors locked
So I laid on the ancient concrete of the parking lot
Exhaling deeply
The pollen and the sweat smell and the cut grass of moments
Passing
The blood pounding in my ears sounded like truth
And when I found a cut under the salt on my shin
Somehow it tasted like honey

I got longing in my heart
For age and money
Wisdom
Years and money
Being young is funny
Being anything is funny
Because always you’d rather be anything else

I got longing in my heart
For time and money
Being youngandstupid
Isn’t funny
It isn’t fun anymore
I will always be poor
Because youngandstupid is one word

I got longing in my heart
And I’d rather be anything else
Than what I am right now
Being youngandstupid starts to hurt
When you’re not so young anymore
But youngandstupid is one word

I got longing in my heart for the things I never learned
I got longing in my heart
I don’t want to be stupid anymore
I don’t want to be one word
I want to be anything else
I could be anything else
If I would just stop worrying and learn

I don’t want to be lying
Alone in your arms
I don’t want to be telling the truth
With your calluses speaking to my belly
And your words getting lost in my ear
Did you feel it kick?
Did you?
Did you feel it?
I didn’t feel a thing
I am not unhappy
I am happy
I am not unhappy
I’m uncertain
Of what’s beating in my belly
Did you feel it kick?
I didn’t feel a thing
Will you make me an honest woman?
Will you do the math?
1+1+1
Is three
I’m so afraid
That’s what we’re going to be
I can’t be your wife
I’m so sorry I’m a liar
I love truth
As much as you
I loved the lie inside me
I loved the words you spoke
To the not ears
In my belly
And your shape
Filling the not space
Beside me
And your blood
And my blood
Telling stories inside me
Saying not not not
I am not happy
I am unhappy
I am not happy
I’m uncertain
Of what we do now
I didn’t want to be lying
Alone in your arms
But I wasn’t telling the truth

There's new grass
Growing where the Bear
Laid in state interspersed
With fine chaining dandylions
And quick cutting ramps
Lou's wool socks hang
To dry on the porch, the
Color of her

If I asked nicely, the sun
Would not quit today
Pulling up green shoots from
Her death bed
Yesterday was fodder
Yesterday was mama crying
At the close of another time
The wind pulling my hair and
Telling me secrets

Nature is gentle
A pillow of birth
Where the Bear
Laid in state

See?

*all things are new

I wanted there to be a word
For the space between
Her penultimate breath and her last one
There were no words
Nobody makes them like that anymore
If I had to pick one though it would be
A word like a waiting room or
A word like an anvil or
A word like being called on when you don't know the answer

But that moment wasn't so much
A moment as a pregnancy
Of emotions
And it wasn't so much
The expectation of my feelings
Being born as it was
The end of her feeling
Anything she could hope to use
Words for

*If I started writing now I wouldn't even know where to begin

Fly away little bird
Sleep around
This country is too beautiful
To settle down