Listen I do not want your pity I was a child and I did
not speak did not understand and now the story has
no power yes I was I still am that one yesterday and
the day before and all the ones that came after listen
I loved more than anything my mother listen this spring
to the wings scraping the air raw watch the seething
shore where dying songbirds are stones the journey
made I stand on this southern shore and spring throws
dying birds like vile rain like rain trying to find its sad
To write means to drown nothing more
I write you letters which means I drown in specific places the shape of an alphabet the shape of a paper a face
Here let me erase what I’ve written
No let me erase the previous beloved to whom I wrote
The globe is full of plastic made to look like snow the bowl is full of things pretending to be fruit incapable of rot
Fruit is the womb of the plant is the mute sweetness of hope
Someone perched bird-like knees drawn to chin feet on a fat branch
back curved like a broken arch someone was huddled on a dead tree
on a tree like old bone over water someone could find nothing at all
to praise in the cage of skin nothing in the cage of afternoon someone
ached and was empty the way the beaten sky might sometimes be just
like a bruise the way storms leave everything behind to heal itself again
to make itself into something other than a case study for the wind and