Six:

standing for prayer
the corner of the school desk
thrice daily finds me

flatness and hardness,
and the fluorescent lighting
heavenly verses

it’s tuesday morning
forgive us our trespasses
and I’m told to chant

Nine:

horseback riding is
a wonderful thing for girls
it builds self-esteem

trail rides through the scrub
learning skills in the outdoors
Palomino flanks,

hard leather saddle
rolling, dazed, back and forth and
sweating in the heat

Twelve*:

vaseline vignettes
of slick and dewy couples
raw, tanned romance, all

in rapid Spanish
the love in *Latin Lover
is jacuzzi steam

all we can do is
laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh
and laugh, and watch them

We are essentially unknowable, she says
and laughs.
I’ve lived with the same man
for thirtyoddyears
and he’s basically a stranger.

A stranger that occupies
her bed,
her body
her kitchen table.
They eat oatmeal out of stoneware bowls
washing them over and over
traces of their spit
mixing together
in the lukewarm dish water.

He clears the sink
of the bloated grey solids
that remain there once the water has drained.
They are so similar
two magnets aligned  
as they’ve drawn closer
the space left between
grown smaller but harder.

A question rings red as a tuning fork struck.
The spreading halo glows it's ache
through the tunnels of the head
hammer, mallet, and shell
all shimmer in concert
I am awash in it's ripples
and my mouth fills
with the iron taste of rust.
There is metal in it all
in blood and in dirt
and there in the tone
as my own blood aligns redly
along it’s sharp edge
traces embedded
in the weather and in my veins
charged, polar, always pushing
at the the insulation
the condensing division
the gulf