after Ocean Vuong’s “Essay on Craft”

Because the microwave

    lighting the evening

crept into my metaphor

                          without asking me

if I wanted to see. Because

after dinner we laid in Dad’s

pick-up like tranquilized cattle

          and no one came

to turn on the stars. Because I ran

            out of alliteration

after fleeing and freeing

          tied my tongue.

There’s a car in my neighborhood with the bumper sticker

“a little feral” and I think of how yesterday I sawed

off two slices of watermelon and let them drip disgusting

down my elbows. I catch myself sometimes: I forget

to sweep the corners on purpose or run a load of laundry

without soap. I press into the world’s chest—will it budge?

I didn’t know I loved my first boyfriend until I yelled fuck

you one night and he didn’t leave. I do this—I push back

like a palm in church. I didn’t know I loved God until he grated

the black night into my bowl and didn’t flinch when I threw up

a few stars.

that's what she said

the night they found

her throat in the alleyway

behind HomeSense, rolling

around in vernix

and blood. No time to call the doctor,

her jaw had simply hinged

open like a red tulip

on autopilot.  Rumor has it

this woman birthed

a voice the size of her life.

my yellow face in the police

blue sky, stranded like a lost

star. How about daylilies

in a field of cow shit

sucking sustenance like  good

gods. How about ferns

in pots as rough as a heel. How about

airplanes. And aperitif. How about I follow

you into bed with satin

hands?  How about we linger

in the hallway to hell

a bit longer? I could do this,

I could make myself obey

the earth for you.

because he has no ears

of his own. Your ears are his.

You think there is space between—

a whole sky, fat as a blue whale—

but there isn’t! God can’t even see you

in your combat boots and red cashmere

scarf from the consignment store.

There is no celestial and woman.

In fact, all 3.95 billion gods

wake up every morning

in little apartments, get dressed

in colors that can scream, and roam

the world in boots just like yours.

It never happens twice,

the beluga blows,

the sun hangs grey and washed,

like an old comforter

on a grandmother’s clothesline.

We are quickly fucked

under a sunset, like lace in an oven.

To have a heart

is to have a task, to have a heart

I know, sounds

like gravity had a baby,

but it didn’t—it’s just

floating on the first rib—

the original error of life.

after Ocean Vuong

“I praise you because I am fearfully

and wonderfully made”—Psalm 139:14

Because there is no hatred between a bee’s knees

and the pollen. Hey. I am cut

throat and I admit flowers are still beautiful

         outside of a crumbling cathedral. Because the chords

in my throat drowned in hymns long before

         I was baptized in my boyfriend’s pond.

Because I will always need to share

         a little gospel. I  memorized

the stem, the stamen, and the pistil. I sank

         my knees into the soft, yellow of hope—

felt the good news spread.

after Dion O’Reilly

Unruly wild snakes, like Satan’s

pubic hairs. Gates to hell.

The door to a swamp—

toad-green and fermenting.

My father’s eyelashes, a thousand

mini-machetes.

His corkscrew eyelashes, his rabid

eyelashes, his scorpion eyelashes.

My father’s eyelashes—the first

fluttering thing I’ve wanted to bury.

for the last time. A child lets go.

The night groans as I fall asleep

on his pullout couch. A grandma

puts her oxygen aside. Time

is passed around like diamonds

in a good family. We borrow

each other’s last closed fists.

“In a dream, you are never eighty.” —Anne Sexton

So I am still

standing here

in a linen dress,

fresh and flat

as a green onion,

crying for a chance

to grow a throat,

a perfect heart,

two little legs, soft

like warm potatoes.

after Wo Chan

‍

my mother was a thimble. My father was a needle.
During the day, he sewed blankets. Large ones for God,
small ones for the devil. Every night, he left the safety
of my mother and went into the night unprotected.
I was a spool of pink thread. Small. From a discount
bin. Sometimes I was useful. Mainly, I was pretty.
Still, I was hopeful that one day I would make it into a blanket.
I wanted to be warm, soft like rabbit’s custard. I wanted
to snuff the fire of my father’s sins with the length of my body.
My father liked the cold night against his bare eye.
Danger got him going. Yet, the red outline of my mother
always pressed into the circumference of his thoughts.
In the morning, I can still see him slinking home—
the tip of his body dull and dirty. Used.