It Worked Out a Way to Survive
The Venus he gave me ate another daddy
longlegs. They were still wiggling when I
watered it this afternoon. It's a cruel world
he texted me last month but it's true for today
again so I texted it to myself by thinking
those letters in that order and why do we
call it eating. They're more like green fists
closing. Okay most fists don't have teeth.
Look what it's gotten me to say out loud
after spaghetti and meatballs—you made
the meatballs to my mom's recipe from
my grandmother's I never met, how's that
for time travel—and two highballs because
of hard days at work. After making love
I fell asleep against you curled in my arms,
our skin stuck together so we peeled apart
when I woke again to sit in the living room
staring at my phone. At two in the afternoon
looking out the windows at a street corner,
a neighbor's house—her black maple—
I can see into her windows so I look away.
Now at one in the morning it's a film scene—
someone's mixing chemicals in a half bath,
a hatchback about to arrive, two men who
can't who shouldn't be trusted. It's a plant.
It evolved in a place difficult to survive.
A Crow Saying Caw Not Cawing
Feels like this happens every other
day now. And eclipses, we're like
what eclipses. Scrolled past one
live streaming last night. Kept
scrolling. The sound of you
knocking outside trying to get in
only the bump of the robot vacuum
thunking a living room wall.
Woke me from a dream. Worried
you needed me. The fan for noise
all night long. Car breaks just now
through winter closed windows.
I hope no one's hurt out there.
They call it a mash up if you see
a frog croak come from a robin.
No one told me I had to figure out
for myself people walk around not
speaking the things pounding
through their minds. At the airport
food court—I'll never drink coffee
from a hotel room machine. I've
heard too many stories what people
get up to with those. Something just
blocked out the sun. A titanium tube
of people trying to get somewhere. No
idea they were just stronger than the sun.
