an ice tongue sliding down penguin wing
slow melt sugary gas station slushie

Bluebells not offered to her due to snark
the Autumn equinox lies: cold then blister hot

Will the world remember my blood
birthed a divine gift? Not a mulberry tree,
but of gore to white.

The ancients were wrong: the acid spit of Cerberus
Breeds not nightshade, but cilantro.
Parsley blooms from the pages of indexed love letters, left in dusty attics
For a minimum of 7 years, nutmeg grows like mold on tombstones

You fancy yourself a scientist
afraid of losing your footing.
You don't believe in magic,
but you are staring at the proof

But even with twenty two kisses of saliva
And thorough stirring,
The mixture is thick and grainy,
And turns my gentle sunrise into
Something my hand didn’t wish for.

the first time the crown vic showed up at my house
it was because your car was parked out front & because you were leaning
over me by the front door

& my all-american skin burned white-hot because it meant
the neighbors saw & because it meant they saw you & screamed
& they saw me holding your hand

turning the lake surface – also borrowed-
from gloss to matte while you
sip badly brewed coffee from a 5 cup
pot- this is yours-

A fresh paper is bagged,
Thrown, rained on, frozen,
Picked up, and unfolded.

It itched the snowfog

high out
on the dandruff shoulder
of the mountainside’s
dark pelt.

think of the astronauts, boots nestled
in lunar dirt, poofing their way over
the porous surface. think about artemis

Decades of sawdust
hid in the crevices
of the wall joists, the gaps
between the floorboards
that the broom could
not touch.

Downtown
near ash end motel
where leopard coat fishnet dreams
draw within gray men

the wholesome talk of the men at the mill,
playing on the television in our Providence

apartment, the fear I felt when Mary went blind,
first fitted for glasses, before her quick decline.

stiff Levi’s, stiff Tony Lama boots, downshifting
his new Ford Bronco, spitting dust across
the open ranchland of her heart,

on repeat, a song just out of memory’s grasp. It
could be from

twenty years ago, or the tomorrow that is

twenty years from whatever now is.

When you were five,
you watched from the backseat
as the warning signal bar came down
over the hood of your mom’s car.

if it wants to burn it will apparitions unfolding from its
bulb misting the air

with summons to your gravesite.

Maybe I should call the store
and ask them to send her
some ice cubes for her birthday.