We      enter              the
                             rusty hinges
             of
                          humidity                             &
                               time,     a
                       knuckle,     a
         stained

                                                         web,
                       
                                                         dark.

         My                              gut  prickles,

  yanked.          I
                                                                 howl
to the            dusk.

~ Erasure of Felicia Zamora’s poem, “Memory of Sheep Rustling”

We leave for Newark tomorrow

They’re going to bury me alive, little sad shape!
They’re going to tie a hundred fish hooks into my hair!
… While you weren’t home I picked your locks

and licked all the dust off your picture frames-
I’m chasing 52- the lonely whale, the french suit, David’s birth year.
I am particularly fascinated by random bursts of roadside flowers.

Twin rabbits ran towards Heat Lightning and I thought
It might be nice to hit them with my car, the sensation
Of bone and flesh giving way under assembly line weight.

Watched rainbows dance in the wire grid of the fryer basket
And the oil popped on a kamikaze mission towards my cornea-
Missing slightly, it seared a circle just below my brow.

You remove the feeling with the same lie that gets rid of a
Tapeworm- you starve your heart three days and
Hunch your fluttering body over a basin of milk.

I step out ready to step back in
my instinct has become  to caution
yet her surprised presence  was bedecked in delight 

my squirrels would love these
she exclaimed  the sunflowers bowing between us
their regal heads stalwart on lean necks
turned toward the rising sun

into her smiled face  alight 
I could resist nothing
my smile returned in kind

so much clarity
black and white coherence 
nothing between us 
in this passing moment

I went on to water the flowers
pull the weeds
trim the shaggy bushes of their uneven ends
watch the sweet yellow finches appreciate the blooms ornamented along the front walk
all the while her face brilliantly transfixed upon the open doorway
my mind had just become

the perfect amount
of days,
poems,
effort,
energy.
I am frazzled,
stressed.

fourteen hours until takeoff.

These monuments, they speak to me  
in shadowed figures set in stone
recording births and deaths in solemn tones.

I shiver with the wildness of this place,
awed how time reclaimed a haunted spot
of sacred ground, neglected – now forgotten –
family plot.  

My boots crush meadow grass,
and trumpet vine assaults the rusted fence,
sharp evidence no one comes
to tend this place of pine box memories
lost to verdant fields and pin oak trees.        

The body breaks down,
it has to, I tell myself,
watching her breathe,
wishing she’d just stop.

I could clean my calendar
of this shell,
hollowed of affections
and memories —
the firing of a few
unsympathetic neurons
the wedge against
moving past, moving on.

It’s terrible
this holding pattern
of here and not.
No peace except
between heart beats,
love and history stripped down
to something baser
than flesh and bone.

I bring cookies
for the staff who feed
and bathe her.
My selfishness
masquerading as caring.

Crossing the grounds
of the nursing home
on my way in —

the Sunday dew,
cheap shoes, wet leather
stains my skin.

The girl you are plays in taxi cabs in Cherokee Park.

Kentucky’s forests are filled with animals.
Spite is one of them.

I go beyond the block without permission while
scared to touch the family’s blue porcelain figurines.

I beg my mother for Battle-Armor He-Man
to fit with children that have no care for me.
I need no ornament. Mí swing es tropical. 

We are the same today.
We break rules in persimmon light.

Pin me to the ground, punch me, take it, raise my cloud,
kiss me like a fool, your sister smashes down my brow.

That girl loves the world and throws rice at virgins.

Her casket is a length of oak,
swathed in kudzu and poison ivy,
and her body decays uncovered, 
exposed. 

In her palm lies a fruit, 
indistinguishable from its own rot,
encoiled in serpentine vines
that bury themselves into bone
and turn dust back into dust.

No name is etched
into the bark of the tree where she lies,
though most who would view her
would know her—love her—

but some

some would name her whore.

Her fault,
they would hiss
as their Garden blazed behind them
and a long train of bitter souls
was escorted
from the gates of paradise. 

They would console her husband
as they passed,
offer him kindness and condolences
when behind his back,
in his hand, so much larger than hers,
he held the last piece 
of the fruit
they shared. 

Her casket is a length of rope
passed down to her daughters
and theirs
and theirs
and theirs
on and on until the twine
is frayed and bloodied,
mended in places, needing further repair.

As we pass it, some of us whisper,
her fault
and gesture behind ourselves
to the daughter before them
but the rest of us,
the ones who listened to the stories we were told,
forgive her.

Even as blood drains from our own bodies
to feed our daughters and sons, 
to placate the moon and the Son,
we understand,
that whatever that snake promised her
had to have been better
than being naked and alone
with a man
you only thought you knew.