There are no answers beyond
what or why, nothing to ascertain.

We are familiar, these shadows of the past and I.

God rested on the seventh day,
yet I dread to rest

“Stay with us and bleed and live,” they tell me.

“Touch your hand. Describe how it feels.”

Out past the castaway skeletons

of train tracks and chicken farms,

my father and I cut through the drifts,

Dr. Giannini never says no to anyone, which is why his waiting room is always packed and noisy.

I stayed still in the bed and moved my eyes around the room.

My ligaments of rot rose forth from the muck

eager and hungry, sticking 

to the oozing Earth.

I committed perjury when I was 14 years old.

Really, what were the chances?

A plain stick match

scratches its sulfur contrail

across the iron griddle

of an enameled wood-stove.

It's pride to say that you

don’t regret anything,

Mayas chirping early in the morning.

When you are six years old, you learn from Andrew Lang's Blue Fairy Book that your cleft palate makes you hideous.

Cara looked out the office window at the black wrought iron fence surrounding the cemetery.

You flushed like a Maiden’s Blush apple when you unwrapped his gift.

I wear your face to the party.

Erin wanted to go down to the dog park again but Ann, Erin’s mother, couldn’t face it today.

She dreamt of stillness for her soul.