BOOTY CALL

My fishnets

were no match

for hang

nail, let’s start

there. I wish

I could report

back toughness,

pot roast cooked

past prime,

so overdone

the fork bounces

back at hungry

mouth. Instead,

I melted.

Despite caution,

climbed into

matte chevy,

set my feet

on dirty

dashboard,

leaned back.

I folded away

as cooling sunset,

a subset of

cautionary

tales, another

girl softly

bruised, tender

body

bent.

I wanted

to feel coquette.

I hung

like grocery bag

from branch,

I hung

my head

home.

GOD OF URGENT CARE

My mom is in the hospital and we exist in the tension.

My mother, her blonde hair matted to her face,

is in the hospital and I am outside in my car,

existing in the tension. Everything is suspended.

Everything is opaque and the skin around my father’s

eyes grows chapped and salmon.

I wish they had over-the-counter-sedatives, my dad says.

For you or for her? Ha-ha. Our laughs are scoffs—

like we are above humor now—like we exist in the

top layer of scum on a pond, watching others interact

with effortless emotion under us.

We stay floating, estranged from other bodies.

Out West, California is on fire. The news, each half hour,

reports on the plumes of smoke rising up,

veiling the state so thickly grey, you’d think it was Cleveland.

Ash falls like snow and the States are in mourning.

The news does not report on my mother because

she is not California. You’ve heard the story before:

I reach out to grab my father’s working hand, thick with callouses.

The coffee has grown tepid, the creamer separated at its surface.

GOLDEN YEAR

There is a broken, sparrow

wing stuck in the faulty slat

of our back porch.

We ought to fix that, I say weekly.

What I really mean is, let’s repair

what is broken.

Inside, my husband pretends

to be busy. I hear the sound

of pans being moved from here,

to there, the slap of grip socks

against linoleum, the faucet

turned on then off.

Our hands are cinder-blocks

when we go to touch each other’s

cheek. Pulling the broken glass

from my drunk heels,

he said: get help, get help, get help.

I picture being carried South

by a V of birds: flapping, full of purpose,

carried through warm, April rain.