with \u201cVictor Jacquemont Holding a Parasol, 1865\u201d & a line from bell hooks<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Do you ever get sad thinking that all the dogs<\/p>\n in old paintings are dead? \u200bMore helpless<\/p>\n than the past is the bruise\u00a0that carves<\/p>\n it into canvas & the root of martyr,<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I learned, is witness<\/em>. So I \u200bpractice saying no<\/p>\n to dusk\u2019s orange heel, poised above<\/p>\n my throat. As if existence has a bloodthirst<\/p>\n for testimony. As if stillness is a eulogy<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019m working up the bravery for.<\/p>\n Contemplating death leads us<\/em><\/p>\n back to love.<\/em> It\u2019s not that the dark<\/p>\n is thicker, but that in the meteoric<\/p>\n <\/p>\n hours under a soup\u2019s-ladle to pass sunflower atoms from my tongue<\/p>\n to your tongue. There are so many people<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I will never see old: Most. My father<\/p>\n hiding in the blackberry field<\/p>\n lacing the sun to his ghost boots. After<\/p>\n you tell me about the island mangroves,<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I gift you a jar of blackberry jam Monet\u2019s admission that while<\/p>\n watching someone he loved<\/p>\n <\/p>\n die, he spent up the time analyzing<\/p>\n the pigments in her eyelids, deciding<\/p>\n how to paint them. We\u200b can only learn<\/p>\n so much from squatting in the dirt<\/p>\n <\/p>\n with capillaries hung like dried roses<\/p>\n to preserve in the shroud<\/p>\n of pages. I\u2019ll spend a life failing<\/p>\n to befriend the fear that all of this glows<\/p>\n <\/p>\n & ends: a faint slash of tenderness<\/p>\n before the sorrow festival.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Passing a rare live deer at the side <\/p>\n the twisted necks & blank eyes<\/p>\n its kind are prone to, a lineage of split livers<\/p>\n ant-eaten like cupcakes<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My mother says possums kill It\u2019s true\u200b.<\/em> Kick a dead calf, a possum<\/p>\n peeks sheepishly out the bloated mouth<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hold my hand ten more miles & I\u2019ll stop<\/p>\n myself from telling you, again, about the dead<\/p>\n bird in my Kentucky yard & the other <\/p>\n Even the rabbits are hiding for safekeeping. What if we chose to forget<\/p>\n <\/p>\n the impulsive deployment of knives, if we believed<\/p>\n honeybees were the only blameless beings<\/p>\n <\/p>\n II<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Birds & more birds into a nest of hotbreathed animals<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Splayed like iguanas in the daylight <\/p>\n Witnesses, too, are actors new spells for desire: tying hair strands<\/p>\n around a bay leaf, then burying it<\/p>\n <\/p>\n with both hands in red mud. \u200bIf you have someone<\/p>\n who will bury with you, what we call tenderness<\/p>\n is simply the condition<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Again I lay at your back, wearing<\/p>\n the face of the wolves that ate me<\/p>\n <\/p>\n III<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Who will tell the bees <\/p>\n My friend\u2019s mother says<\/p>\n she packed the hive in wool<\/p>\n <\/p>\n but within days<\/p>\n she found them frozen<\/p>\n <\/p>\n in breathless Arkansas winter<\/p>\n Huddled in a ball of ice<\/p>\n <\/p>\n IV<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When a leaf sprouts does it name itself<\/p>\n Preparation For The Rotting<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you love someone why not make them happy<\/p>\n without you<\/p>\n <\/p>\n V<\/p>\n <\/p>\n There is nothing so alive as crying <\/p>\n Watching briary porches on the brick tenements I grow fat with wonder<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How potato chip bags & dogs & daylight are all<\/p>\n made of dark space matter & us too, yes, your finger<\/p>\n <\/p>\n hooked through my finger like the tiniest window latch, my heart<\/p>\n clinking between your teeth, <\/p>\n VI<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I feel dying.\u200b<\/em> Small children say this <\/p>\n There was a woman sleeping in the road<\/p>\n that wraps around the cemetery <\/p>\n Green green bottomland<\/p>\n wilding my sorrow <\/p>\n Let us look on one another If you love someone why not make them happy \/ without you<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":6426,"template":"","categories":[9,49,119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6415","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aquifer","category-literary-features","category-poetry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nof Orionids, I\u2019m embedded with need<\/p>\n
\nfrom my grandmother\u2019s land & remember<\/p>\nTallahassee Spring<\/h3>\n
\nof the highway, far enough
\nin the grass to pretend it doesn\u2019t know<\/p>\n
\nby tunneling up through a creature\u2019s ass<\/p>\n
\nwho landed to stare. Unflinching<\/p>\n
\nlong-eared ghosts\u2014someone they swallowed<\/p>\n
\nplow the bluegray morning
\nThe shivery opulence with which we split<\/p>\n
\nSometimes you are touching me
\n& I am thinking up ways to get ovened into dirt<\/p>\n
\nin the grieving process. Driving
\ninto Florida\u2019s oblong belly, I memorized<\/p>\n
\nthe names of all the dead?<\/p>\n
\nunder purgatorial dawn filtered
\nthrough the clanking brogue of a train tunneling backwards<\/p>\n
\nslide away from us like futures
\nThe whole sweet metal sow, inside its glass stomachs<\/p>\n
\nthe smallest unlatched window<\/p>\n
\nHothouse as fuck this Tallahassee spring
\nSlivers of broken lightbulb glittering the bedsheets<\/p>\n
\nA stranger<\/p>\n
\nwith unrelenting blooms<\/p>\n
\nwith the joyful urgency of cakebearers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"