These days I’m scared of almost everything.

Trees that look like men. Men that look

like trees. The status of honeybees, round

bodies dizzy on sweet. They don’t know

how quickly the hum of their hive will begin

to fade. How larger beasts come to rip away.

Today, I’ve swallowed a baby bird

and it flaps against my insides trying

to loose its wings. Tomorrow,

I’ll swallow a stick of dynamite

and it will pulse, almost alive,

under the stomach skin. I hold

each squirrel closest to my heart: they fiddle

with the atrium, knock on each valve

as if searching for something buried. My chest:

a stubborn acorn refusing release. Give me some

of my body back. I cont’ hold

all of these creatures in my hollows

for long. I watch girls in their patterned leggings

stuff ducks full of white bread,

think of the way their wings will mutate

to look like angels, useless in the jaws

of a badger. Uncovered faces, everywhere.

The persistence of summer and shorts.

Why is it in out nature to think of joy

and fear as two separate wings

not connected by the same hallway?

There are nice things too, right now,

always. The imagined sound of the whole world

breathing in unison. The nuzzle of a cat scalp

against my open palm. The way I always take

a small offering and think of it as more.

Even here, the light cuts my bedroom into sections,

makes each lovely in its multiplicity.

 

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