Remember the dead dog we found on the bridge road. A coyote, I said.

Raised as I was near a cemetery, I always assume some authority

over the departed. Stray magic. Lies about the natural world

comfort me, I admit. Like if a tree feels something

when another tree is fucking up her life. I believe in patterns. Shapes.

Pinnate, whorled. I remember too the accordion doors of the Blue Line train

& the way it spit me out piss-drunk on the O’Hare platform crying

because I wasn’t sure if I’d hit him or if I’d only wanted to.

I was trying to starve myself out of a feeling. Signals & timelines.

& if the train comes out of the tunnel before I count to ten

then I’m not the most fucked thing. & if not, then when.

My own mouth bleeding is a nice round number.

On your couch I fall asleep with puke in my hair & I dream

that I’m trapped in a water tower. Katie, I wake up saying.

ELEGY WITH FEATHERS

When you’re gone I press my hand to the stove just once. Patches of blisters pearl on my palm. I have sense enough to put on my coat. On the boat I am called Red. I take every other phrase from an elocution book. I wear a high collar that rubs against my cheek & in the rain it leaves a scratch raised like a welt. I pretend not to know why you’re gone, pretend there is not the same sickness inside me. I try to explain about the curse for which the cure is not thinking. On the fourth day, notes on a disaster include water & water. A man on the boat follows me all day, just one question then I’ll leave you alone. There is nowhere a girl can go that a man like this won’t have a question. A trade he feels owed. There’s a hole in his glove & the skin underneath is peeled raw. A teakettle boils on the wind. Help me. On my knees I ask to be turned into a gull. I shift into white gloss, feathers.

DEAR RUTH

Anyone can be a plank-mouthed bird or anyone can be the sky hallelujah

is the accepted lie of hymns. Like a girl walking has never needed to fly

but could if she wanted. If winged & if the wings fit—if fielded, if felt.

What is the difference between asking & asking for it are the words

that we should burn into a field, Oh Glory. Whether you are lost

or whether you are the blondest bird leaned against a fence

hemming in an orchard, Ruth, you are the holy thing I look to.

So explain to me about the habits of cicadas, why only the men

speak, why it takes some of them 17 years to come correct.

All the leaves are eaten bare; yet the tree is not empty, we know