rough and tough

My husband died and
I began eating meat again.
The world is kill
or be killed.

Like a 15 year old boy,
my best words are 'fuck it'.
Howl at the moon,
Sleep with the deer.

Stemming from a line of
toughness
roughness
pickled livers
spanish flu immigrants,
a nail studded 2 by 4
in the concrete lot.

Like dressing beef jerky
in long blonde hair
and pretty pink blush.
Master's degrees in
the art of calming down.

Give me a hickory stick to bite.
Hang the placenta from the ceiling.
Display the raining blood.

broken breaths

when the wind blows
when the river shakes
knowns become unknowns
and your breath breaks

hold tight to the center
hold tight to the floor
blades spine your neck
lava bursts from your pores

milktoast mornings
charred ash fights
black and white birds circle
deleting day and night

weaving circles
of holy dread
she mends her wings
with broken breaths

"Her Kind"

by Anne Sexton

I have gone out, a possessed witch, haunting the black air, braver at night; dreaming evil, I have done my hitch over the plain houses, light by light: lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind. A woman like that is not a woman, quite. I have been her kind. I have found the warm caves in the woods, filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves, closets, silks, innumerable goods; fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves: whining, rearranging the disaligned. A woman like that is misunderstood. I have been her kind. I have ridden in your cart, driver, waved my nude arms at villages going by, learning the last bright routes, survivor where your flames still bite my thigh and my ribs crack where your wheels wind. A woman like that is not ashamed to die. I have been her kind.

penny nightmares

try to turn away
turn into the gray cocoon
float over the frozen ocean
bob and weave into
comfortable nothingness
it's these penny nightmares
it's a terrifying thing, being seen

but every time you try to turn
I will grab one corner
of your fiery wings
get burned
and pull you from the flame
of infinite space
watery time
painful thought

tuck you under my arm
and run
to the warm hearth
the soft couch
the laden table
tuck you inside
and let you use
my heart for your pillow

reminders

scars
are a physical history
of pain

shoulder
straight tequila
from the bottle
blurred out fireworks
he throws me on the ground
"whore"
everyone sees with pity

nose
sliding off
the big green truck
when you're two years old
only mama
remembers the blood

arms
out of the bar
taking his silver car
so he kisses me
with a closed fist
black eye,
bloody lip
slivered shards

knee
off the bike
on the gravel
taking risks

foot
walk him to the
steel front door
rehab
and go straight to
the brown bottle
washing my white party dress
with red wine

jaded alarm
these scars
these arms
these harms

stinger

pink lips puff

drawn from

a fleshy bow

flowing poison

the dart

of his tongue

and

I go

down

gulleys

So tired,

moreso tired

than ever before.

Lower eyelids fill with gravel

and drop

to the floor

to catch sideways waves

of rain.

Busy murdering

in my sleep.

A real life, a routine,

engulfed by anxiety

and chemical kisses.

The six inch hunting knife

in my glove box.

He uses it to open

a bag of fennel seeds.

I watch him carefully.

Taking up the blade, I

cut my shadow self loose.

She slivers blackly

through the grass,

winds up dirty talking

in the corner of a jail cell,

eating bacon and mayonnaise

sandwiches in bed at midnight.

Ugly pressure

slowly creeps

up my leg,

up my toe.

The amputated shadow,

darkling, she knows,

she wrestles

a bag of dreams

over my head.