In-person
Raise the lights (a toast to our return)
Part the curtains (but not the mask)
Breathe in (feel the dust and the heat)
We sing (but for ourselves)
I am no dull spoon.
The scissors were there when I woke.
I cut the white sheets to get out of bed.
I admire my edges.
I wear a skirt.
I stab the sidewalk when I check the mailbox.
I pirouette on one point.
My scissors glint in the sun.
They click together like castanets to create my cadence.
My scissors sing against the whetstone in the kitchen.
We snigger at the teaspoon on the counter that needs another for music.
We chop chicken bones and metal cans.
The little girl in the cart at the grocery stares.
She says that her scissors at school aren’t sharp like mine.
We say, just wait.
There are days when my head
Is full of sawdust
A collection of
Tiny pixel particles that I can’t,
For the life of me,
Sweep up in its entirety
It’s in my eyes, my nose, my mouth
I try to talk but I don’t remember
I fall asleep and hope to wake up completed
Built
Whole
But sometimes
I’m still just
Tiny grains of sawdust
They run to the hills
when I write the cleaning list
They cringe with each stroke
as I assign names
color code respective tasks
and hand it over
If I did not dare
to be specific with them
the house would crumble
Better they mumble
and complain all the day long
than deny virtue
from kids who need a
lesson in “hush and do it”
’cause back in my day…
requires one-thousand-
piece-puzzle eyes & love of
green green—
why not eat the leaves!
ice cubes clink in a glass
gently rip the fabric of time
I’m in an old Chevrolet
where a gang of bullies pass
the bottle around
I must
drink
If I don’t they’ll
pour it down my throat
I never consider
getting out of the car
It doesn’t taste
like birthday cake
unless
it tastes like
wax and smoke,
the drippings and
the drifting,
the wishes soaked
into icing
like an echo.
Did I ever tell you about the day
I got stopped by the fashion police
for wearing white socks
with sandals after Labor day?
They let me off with a warning.
I used to lay in the forest
staring through the trees
listening to them creak
and strain in the wind
and pretend I was
in the northwest
not this place
with the history
that I didn’t want
with the people
that didn’t want me
who played along
and it left the food
tasting sour
and I love you
was like licking
the inside of a
metal can of sauerkraut
but here I am
still finding places
to look up
and wishing
I would
have burned
all that history
a long time ago
maybe those people
that I’ve ruined
on running
wouldn’t carry
that scent of
death and fear
that seemed to
permeate
that
hollow
