WILD INDULGENCE
There is a woman in my neighborhood
with not one, but six
full-grown St. Bernard dogs.
She tethers them to her waist
and trots the happy troop
up and down the street.
I see her and think what a wild indulgence,
to gather so much joy it orbits you
in a glorious parade of gluttony,
as if she leaves the house and dares
the world to question
how much happiness one person deserves.
It’s ridiculous, of course—
but so is happiness,
so is the heart’s hunger
for more and more and more.
BAD LUCK
In those loaded dice days of divorce,
after he threatened to bury her in the woods,
after she smashed the smoothtop into shards,
after he force-fed her the spark
and watched her burn with a beer in his hand,
after she patched each bruise like a leaky roof,
knowing the storm would come again,
my mother tells me she has bad luck with men.
Bad luck, like a red sock washed with the whites,
a bird at the window tapping twice, spilled salt.
But you can’t call it luck when the whole deck
is rigged— as if misfortune, not men,
put her in the fire.
SKY RATS
We carried them in our hands—
tied letters of love and war
to their paper pink ankles.
They don’t know
they’re unwanted,
that they’ve become
iridescent burdens burrowed
in gutters we’ve lined with spikes
just for them.
They bob their heads,
coo at the feet that kick them away,
doing only as we taught them:
return.
And isn’t that the way of things?
The heart loves to outlive its welcome,
to circle the place it was last fed,
to make a meal out of crumbs.
MIGHT SHOULD
My grandmother was the only person
I’ve ever heard use the phrase might should—
the uncommon marriage of two helping verbs
that, when joined, suggest both
hesitation and intent.
To be brave and unsure,
to hold two contradicting things
in the same mouth.
It was a weld of words that, to my child brain,
meant almost nothing,
like a middle name or a silent e.
I might should call her back.
We might should go to the grocery store.
You might should bring a jacket.
After she died, the phrase swirled
and sloshed through my brain—
pulled me into the undertow where her voice
now exists as a shell song.
My grandmother was a woman who
placed her words like steppingstones:
thoughtfully, deliberately.
All these years later, I understand why,
of the phrases she might have favored,
she chose the one that sounded
like the hush between tides—
one that left a bit of space
for pause, for grace,
for things still taking shape.
FINAL ACT
My grandmother once told me
the reason she got thyroid cancer
is because she never spoke up for herself,
as if each withheld word lodged itself
in her throat, splintered like chicken bones.
But it wasn’t the cancer that took her,
or even the starvation and dehydration.
In the end, she took the low candle with its
dying flame between her potter’s hands
and pinched it out with two firm fingers,
which is to say, after a lifetime of swallowing
her own desire, in her final act,
she struck a bell and sang.
LET ME TELL YOU HOW A STITCH ONLY
SNAPS WHEN IT’S WORN TOO THIN
I haven’t been to yoga in months;
broke my gua sha in the sink;
didn’t eat enough protein today;
forgot to take my vitamins.
Most days, I don’t drink water
until noon. Warm lemon water? Never.
Coffee with cream and two raw sugars, please.
I do not meditate. Rarely journal.
I have sworn off ice baths and fasting
and gluten-free baking, and my god,
I have never been more well.
For so long my skin hung threadbare
from my bones—
stretched to fit any shape
but my own, mending invented holes
until my fingers bled, hands too full
of frayed edges to raise a fist.
I’ve learned that a woman
who wears herself, unaltered,
is not perfect, but free:
the loose thread
that may just unravel it all.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
I overheard a woman
on a first date say
her body is really
just a soft vehicle
to carry her brain.
A gondola without a
gondolier is just
a chunk of wood
and this body
is the least interesting
thing about me.
A mush of
mud and sticks
not meant for you
or for them,
but for sightseeing
this terrible and
wonderful world.
