if it wasn’t already a poem about rape. Here, there is no knife. I’m not caught in the teeth of my mother’s worst dreams—Huffy bike discovered behind the Peoples…

  Their swim finished, feet planted in small puddles as they wrangle suits off, pat themselves dry, weave laughter through the tales they swap— of marriages, new babies, grandchildren, friends…

  Endangered flower, when I learn you open like a wine cup and wait eight days for the pollinating bee to wallow in your bowl, bellied against you, its furred…

  My cousin got arrested for digging trenches to help turtles return to the sea. Pythons have escaped their owners and altered the natural order of things in certain inlets.…

  When autocorrect texts a friend I’m at the fuck pond, I trace the tree line where, in broad daylight, a date once threw me into the whistling grasses. I…

  Let the roads rot. Let the machinery that paves and saws and seals rust. Let houses dilapidate, businesses deteriorate. Let teeth fall out as easily as October crabapples. Let…

  In the heat I am an upper-lip sweater. I can tell I am anxious if it feels like there is a marble stuck in my throat. The longest I…

  Something is bulging and pushing its way in patterns, in risks of what floats and travels. We should be so lucky to see the exact moment it erupts—like a…

  * oat milk * crayons to draw no specific picture to shop for a hobby? * tomatoes—ones that actually taste real * a pause a pass on something I…

  I wonder what my purpose is? Would that be connected with New Year’s intentions? The way intentions relate to plans. Like the planets with their tendencies and directions. Where…

  My mother never knew her father / my grandfather hijacked & hoosegowed, yet fruitful— he was just a footnote. She stabbed herself repeatedly, then put the knife in my…

  It felt too private for prying eyes—this yawning house, its crisped innards—but the whole neighborhood was slippered in the street, silently thankful it wasn’t our shit getting fried. We…