banishes.

ME, COVERED IN ASH

i’m belting around our quiet house like lashings
of rain again and no one hawks up any apologies.

what’s it like to have to be everything i want forever?
fine, i’ll start: sorry for the mugs i leave on my desk

for so long they develop their own ecosystems,
and for the weeks i eat badly, and the nights

i drink too well, for all these small and lumbering
ways i suggest none of this is enough. only the calathea

sees me careful and doting and this is proof there are
just some living things i care to keep living.

a no-turn lighthouse defying purpose, one stubborn
beam of yellow on mutinied black sea, strong enough

to suck up every last drop, sooty remnants of desire
left smeared on your cheeks that i try to clear

with yet another beacon until the hardwood’s cooked
with rage and pitchy delirium. orange oven flaps its maw

like an invitation. and you’re there, saying your obsessions
will be the death of us, and the fear, and those awful

dreams that hang around for days, and i don’t know why
i show only the people i love my ugliest self. even when

the bedroom is warm and the peace lily’s
blooming and the cat, perched near the ceiling,

tuts at the magpies hopping along the canal you’d
think, at last, there’s nothing left to lack, but that’s

the kicker, there’s always something left, and none
of it’s real. i don’t want to admit to the dare:

keep on loving this, do it, and see if i care.

FIFTY-TWO BLUE

for a second imagine a different kind of wilderness.
cobalt mist sizzling through the full bare
whooshing currents light forever muddied
and everywhere refracted. another year then another
returned as the ghostly lone rumble on the hydrophones
no mechanical whir / soviet submarine just
you you, flying solo
come down again from the kodiak like a prophecy singing
that solitary hymn. there is no language for one. i’m
speaking directly to you now: we’ll bond over your
aloneness recognize our own bloodshot geyser-eyes
remembering all the poems we didn’t read to each other
and how many times we could have said love and blue whales
known for their strong and enormous hearts commonly
live in the wild one hundred years and sometimes at home
i worry about being misunderstood / my phone
is lighting up and i don’t answer / my ankles are soaked
and rusted anchors / i’m wondering if i’m better off dry
on the pavement muttering anyone anyone anyone waiting for
someone to coax the mutual song of being from my throat so
for a lifetime imagine a different kind of wilderness.

III.

BLOODSUCKER

dad tells the story: ohio deepwood, him and his brother
little league helmet-clad, tossing stones into the inky sky
until a bat, gravity-lashed, swoops down in their wake,
thinking the ordinary shapes horseflies or sweat bees or hawk
moths, and yes, i can imagine the thrill when the whip
of wind cracked past their necks, when the promised pain
just missed, but i still have a gnawing sort of pity for any
other creature who darts towards the first shrouded wonder
moving in the dark, who throws its whole self at hunger without
fear of breaking teeth, who hopes the wonder might keep it
alive, who doesn’t know, or hasn’t considered, that every restless
shadow exists only to watch something want.