Marriage is a mist that unfolds in the rear-view mirror.
A slim pokerfaced goddess of some kind or other.
A camera’s lens, smeared by a single greasy finger.
Today I discovered my fingertips’ buzz and shock
were because of a kink in my faraway shoulder.
And now I am missing digits. I am listening.
Happy as the whole car on fire in February,
the beauty of the hardest parts. No wonder the moon’s
so yellow tonight I could walk through it into tomorrow.
I am a cautious person, I said to the sublime,
just before it burst into birdsong. Here’s my review
of kindness: Try it, though it won’t fit snug enough at first.
All of us who taught me this: a jar of cream shaken
will become a golden little lump of butter, surrounded by itself.
My sister was a mess of wounds I didn’t want to heal.
The word came next, written in the falling off behind them,
in the night, driving, as I scrambled frantically towards
next year – when in fact we may never even louder. And then,
and then: a loose poem fell into my bane.