She walks like a man.

Her childhood etched into each fierce step.

Her voice has known prisoners.

Accusers and brow beaters.

Rest their heads.

On ample bosoms.

Fake assurance & peroxide curl with smoke.

But it’s her eyes

That sadly believe.

Fierceness is an ace worth holding.

(The plastic box of pins like fierce hail
their coloured heads between lips that would…)

The sun shone every day that summer you were framed in glass:
A sarong tied in hugs and marigold gloves hovering unnamed;
I was the moth to your flame.
Burning words on paper wings I could not read
your despair.
Nor was I meant to.
Pinned to you like a badge.

Those jackdaws laugh a lot from the chimney pots: what do they know?

That night the traffic lights all turned blue.

within the architecture of oaks the deafeningness of starling overload

we stand at the edge of drowning.
the water is small, familiar, and unknowingly
deep. silent fish slip through the night around us.

the view from what happens decides there’s a road. or a fly
on the wall of winter. all things to be done will be done
over. the dark in a dog set to howl.

snow is falling over the past. over the wild
cosmos garden. a silver light holds her feet above
the ground. how much of the moon has she swallowed?

a small horse leans into her juniper tree.
the man who never traveled peels himself from the wall.
a roof begins to leak. good fortune.
one silence holds shadow and sun.

halfway trying to learn a half-dead language