a flowerbed

looking at my wrist in the
sunlight
arteries open like
flowers
into hands

----------------------------------------

my blankets smell of your cologne
I like the covers
how you left them:
open

my bed is a book waiting to be
finished

atonement day

"My mother she married

him and

he wasn't good

no

not good.

at school

I couldn't sit down for a week.

the teacher figured it out

all of it out. she

called home. I

regret most it

was my mother who

got that call because

she did not do

it"

I live in a world full of nesting dolls

a boy in my class keeps

lightning in his ribs
and doesn't make a sound

today he cried
and I bore witness
on my shoulders
slave to guilt

I feel ashamed for laughing once, yes
I feel ashamed for laughing
words are sharper than a steep fall

all this time I have wasted pretending

intelligence is a synonym for

complexity

"I am but mad north-northwest;"

and today the wind blows in a southerly direction

waltzing with pieces of my hair

the morning smells of smoke and cat fur

warm and animal

fingers splay against a blue sun

like leaves;
eyes rest in the shade of my branches

days like this

I wish I could dance

"Y'all bitches is bitches."
--Dante "Don T" Alighieri

phillippians 3:20

a storm of birds
above
New Mexican asphalt

cracked like the bottles
of Jose Cuervo
in the parking lot next door


here is where Christ lay on his cross
in the desert
tar and feathers for company