Your ochre ghost
cracks an egg
into my nightmare
and fevers a demon
through my chest

What we’re talking about is
late night and early morning clouds
having an amplifying effect
on overall temperature

Growing up
an impressionable mass (mess?) of opinions and dreams
lodged solidly between sisters with big breasts and big feelings,

as they strum,

smoke, celebrate

And then the conversation turns to sculpture’s curves, forcing me
from the false trail I’ve been following. Perhaps one day I will stop
writing poems about Godzilla-adjacent things, which will be very sad.

Mom said, Some things can’t be fixed.
And this was a blow I did not accept so I scotch taped her back together
along with a leg I took off when I couldn’t make her bend.

Heather hooked her thumb in once,
Into the cavern of Heather's pink velvet mouth,
Just to see if she would let her.

who is in service of whom and how much
they paying? I imagined it wouldn’t take
long for people to see Clark is special.

When I hiked a segment of the Pacific Crest Trail,
a little ways outside Seattle,
it was blazingly beautiful the whole way.
Looked as good with my bare eyes
as it would in a frame.

Those eyes, those eyes. We get drunk
and conform to views
of how a pep rally
should be. It should be
cherished, like a skeleton.

Meadow can’t breathe but chalks it up to the alcohol
and dancing. Hallucinations, trick of the mind.
Outside, the cool air pin-pricks her skin and the episode
is nearly forgotten.

There is no bartender.
I decide this is now a nightmare.
I scan the room to confirm my suspicion,
but I can’t get anything out of the faceless couple
next to me.

& i am just another circular
song a conch of an echo
of another step
beyond – timeless language

He wins Best Actor. The bar goes crazy. But we want
the big one. We want Best Picture. It means everything.
It means history.

She wore her hair short after her stay
at the Bethel Treatment Refuge to dry out
I remember thinking even as a child
she’d never be as beautiful that way

They had coffee mugs and fridge magnets
skull caps with slogans --
We are stronger together and
No place for hate

& inside Emily is yawning
with her phone in her hand,
beneath a blanket, in front

of the fire, looking up if we can
afford to join an indoor pool.

I will fake

my own death if I have to, will stare
at the ceiling and pretend

I can live there, watching us.
Just watching us.

In the third act, my great great Grandmother
didn’t need a gun. She rode off with the horses
and water supply after he dismounted to piss.