After the rodeo they held a
dance in the 4-H building behind the stands—
They haven’t done that since 2017

I still walked back to my car in silence,
the din of a crowd behind me, freshly plowed dirt and pine, warm beer

I’m in this red summer dress, little yellow flowers all the way down to my ankles,
this is the kind of dress you’re supposed to find me in, in the cornflower blue evening, wisps of peach stratus clouds stretched behind the glaring rodeo lights

Deep Wreck and some kid from Wyoming
arced against the masses, wild hair flying
Red checkered pearl snap

You’re supposed to find me here, You.
You’re supposed to fall in love with me.

Turn it Loose by the Judds plays in the little
red alcove, a bandstand in the foreground;

I get in the car and go home.

Perhaps it is not made for me—
I’m afraid if happiness ever prevailed
to settle upon me it
might be swept away suddenly and
without warning

I have feared that my entire life;
every small joy I have gripped with
the hands of a child
it’s tendrils curled in the web of my
fingers, rare as Vigné a Farinet
fleeting,

Always

Fleeting.

After thomas died—

I started getting tattoos because
I was suffocating myself in grief
drowning daily in my bed,
in the bathroom, in the yard
laying beached in the grass
beneath a deluge of confusion
no water for miles but I am still
Sinking

Drifting through the Surrey hallways
as an apparition, his blood
on my shins
Garrett’s muffled voice asking
If we could just clean her up

Not yet, we need pictures.

I am a callow soul, his death has stripped me
my mother is calling me a silly girl for
The Psalms on my forearm
Luke across my thigh  
for Nehemiah down my spine
I am trying not to die and
all she can focus on is
the wisp of a golden girl gone

This is the catalyst,
the turning point, the ordained moment—
I have not had many of these but when they come they are all encompassing;
I am suddenly not me anymore but
Wet clay, the potter has unmade
me nearly beyond recognition

death has come
And the lord has let it shape me

Death came and it almost took me—
I fought for my life and all my mother could say was

Silly girl


..

I’m made of lists
Knocking on doors, I’m unprepared
half my mother,

I’ve been praying the Lord unmake me
Strip me bare, smelt me to my core

I’m hastening to be someone you could love
Could you?

Could you.

Beneath the corymbia citriodora
somewhere in time, an eternally lilac
womb—
the lord knit our ribs together
and blessed the future laid out
above us like a canopy
Every moment strung across
a cotton string, dried orange slices
in the evening sun, twisting to and fro
soft and crystalline, faintly venous—

We weren’t left without the knowledge of
time or the length at which it would stretch
how I might Look for you every day—
have you been looking for me?

Please look for me.



Please look for me

Early spring, a couple weeks ago;

You came over to help me burn the rest of
The dry brush and weeds in my backyard
Because the day before I nearly burnt down the back fence

we stood by the west pickets and watched the
cows grazing in Seufer’s pasture, mostly silent
A perfectly cool morning, mild in the sun but
We could still see our breath—

I made you coffee and we leaned
against the warm gate of your truck
to talk about nothing, enjoying the
Quiet lull, the unusually busy traffic on my
street

You said you had to go and we hugged
because we always do, always long,
longer than we should

And that’s the last time we saw each other.

His tongue is searching my mouth
for who I used to be and I’m staring at the
Amber lampshade above my bed—

His sideburns are thinning, just in the last year,
I have committed this particular view to memory
many times, his arms; Liana vines enveloping my waist, ankles tucked around my calves,
I am a tiny animal
between his limbs.

I am memorizing the way his hairline fades into his neck, the shape of his forehead, the bistre shadow of his browbone in the foreground—

I do this to remember, I do this to hide you away
In an atrium, in the pulmonary trunk
I keep everyone there, so when they’re gone
when they are inevitably gone—
I can visit,
A softened recollection where I’ve allayed the pain of letting go—

I knew this would happen,
but Ive touched;
I’m touching you anyway,

What is it worth—
if I can’t remember?

You’re kissing me,
Im easing you into
my heart—

You always wanted that.