January/February 2024

Days of rain. The drey outside my window would keel
and the wind would plunder. My heart was valent
with possibility: I could be anyone now, half woman,
half asterism. Fragmental as a new year. Patron saint
of the rutilant and cindering. I could rove incognito
to places pinned in office calendars. Too long I’d
mothered myself with…

Said my illness
I’m tired of being
serious all the
time I don’t
like how you
treat me like
we haven’t shared
the same apartments
for eighteen years
long enough to be
considered married
in some places
happy anniversary
21 I says anyways
who’s counting

Neither milkweed
nor rose-apple
in Schenck’s Anguish,

          only a murder
          of crows sprouting
          at the perimeter

of a mother’s
suffering. Nature is
a near synonym

          of cruelty—look
          how I temple
          its impure. Every

year, death-positive.
My kisses are
darts —I sweat

          poison too heavy
          for oleanders to carry.

In the quiet
of frost, death looks…