my dreams have been about floods
& this isn’t the only way i’ve hurt you. i summoned aphids, suckled on that sap, & drowned us both at the first sign. arms so tight around the chest cavity, it feels like a silent way of saying something: maybe suitcases, maybe bowls never eaten, shoelaces untied or bent flowers in half-sun – who

could say which?

this dream is not singular. this dream twitches in its sleep. this dream spits back & up & is like big morning coming too soon. i don’t believe in many people anymore, so it’s quiet here. bubbles issuing, little speeches, wavering & stagnant.

i sat myself down. i tried fifty-two times. here are the remnants of it: raining off & on, on & off – i can feel it in your breath behind my ear; the slowest lilt & the most beautiful upchuck

Route 22

your arm is around my shoulder on the bus. it is warm outside and a friday is slinking into a sunday. i haven’t been home in what could be considered fifteen years and out the window i saw all the traffic lights peter out at the same time. it was a momentary relief i was never warned about.

warn me about unstable isotopes and how their eyes grasp for my stomach lining to rip it out. warn me about walking beside the lake at night and taking your photograph beneath / above such murky blue. also please, above all, show me a simpler way to labor with the sweet grass i thought i knew how to tend.

i will vindicate us behind this wheel; a broad, silly mountain waving hello against its learned shame. and just so everyone knows, here’s what i will do: i will make lists of my life and swallow the paper to internalize or regurgitate great fear. nothing so deep as the magic one could feel in being that stillness.