THE DEER
The deer—
whose homeschooled deerlings call the dead telephone poles
who bully the fences decategorizing the high desert
who swallow the hysterical to become sluts
who spit to don flickering halos
the glint of which pry out hunters’ retinas, thin cloud of wet microscopes
The deer somehow—
not for lack but of trying to lack
too near us, and so frequently
are given rooms
branded gentility
but how we’ve won is when the deer absent themselves
and leak privately
—know I am a mother.
I MISS
Your black air.
Your okes.
How you’d end me
Your poems, to-do ists.
I miss
Calling you riend,
Your ongue,
My hands flat
Against your ack.
Your ands against
ine.
UNTITLED (LOVE)
A body walking from a lake
Wants to never have been pushed in.
A star wants only a little something:
A donut
A beautiful story.
It never ceases to amaze me
That at the end of your neck
Is a drill, a fountain, the tragedy
Of photography.
I told you the best word is yes
And you said, no, elbow.
Tiny failure.
Band-Aid in the pool.
return to ISSUE THREE