You said it was okay to blame
what goes wrong on the planet

Lights on the dashboard spell out
“You still can’t kiss me”

Do not say anything anybody else has said ever. Things are not “bleached by sun.”

The storm passes without snow.
The car waits loyally in the back lot.

Winter sat like a wolf
on the horizon.

My grandmother asked, “Does it feel like being widowed?”

the man is stayed bent over the canvas
of my sofa. the man is me the man is him
self and I bring down the whip…

I count my homes—
those of my scattered youth
the sanctuary of our young family
the intermittent rest stops
of apartments and vacations.

I want to roll in this moment until I become its vocabulary
until I smell like the bones
until I am its echo…

Mostly he ate what was put on his plate
snuck coffee grounds or dirt for a snack
Once a zipper Unzipped

how does an afternoon turn
on its axis?

I myself should never have been born

this is what I want you to to see:
leaves falling because it is too late for them not to

you quit wearing pants
loaf around your yard
in hole-nipped panties

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

If my life was the size of my arm, I would stretch it out for you.