Bureau

Winter: tasked to catalog
the repugnant organa, 
the deathless contents 
of each tiny drawer: 
honey dipper of sweet tar, 
sweet feather. Discarded
clovers bundled in bows, 
made of spindly things 
plucked from combs. 
Discordant units of four. 
One pair hooves, 
cloven. Lines of drywall
cut with each hinge 
flung off each door
of each lonely 
house. They take shape 
not in pounds but decibels.

Ilang-Ilang

Place that eludes olfactory
Rivers muck up the holes 
Bone black sounds of static
Dubious of displaced herbalisms
How does one love the flower 
Of flowers within the citadel 
Built by an epistemology to justify—
City of recalcitrance 
In vertebrae and dreams 
Oversaturated geography 
Marching with the reticular
Delirium of embrace
Tangles of invasive species churn 
Beneath the clavicle: all those blossoms
So unpink they are white
I must name every undone severance
A miracle or a rain 
Check belly-up on a bed 
Of chlorine I floated 
Feigning bloated body 
I waited

Silent Song

These days, lapses as warm saunas, stretch maternal. 

Long gone the forging, the hammer to the screw. 

How many holes are there in a straw?

Well, define hole. Perhaps, invite the Razor over for drinks. 

You asked what the thing was. I said, “aglet,” knowing. 

Upon threading it, the leash followed the head.

I loved the tadpoles as my own. I could not bear to

bear to witness the great loss. The turtles had to eat.

Autumn, time of bestowing presence unto myself, 

brought the absence of thrashing children.