“& gusts into my belly—as though it senses / there is something to bring to life there,”

“this the prologue to our fortune-cookie opera, / the mystifying fog of today conceals the dark-ness of your future, yes, there you are at two / a.m. amtraking the porch, one last stop for”

“held my berried index and middle and pulsed / with my bikepeddled speak / My stumbling tongue too / young for her mothertastes: a haste”

“Not being dead is neither worst nor best case scenario / It is just regular like you would see a beautiful orange chicken / I have three primary categories for things that happen / The first being AMAZING”

“The light was a specific kind / as a sky-field of stars without a moon”

“ Nothing. Frozen shut. Then one day, a baby appeared in the ice, followed by another. No one could think of any missing children, but soon the lake was littered with infants.”

Thin, vinegar-sauce tang calls us / to our seats like somnambulists. / Our fever-dreams are burnt ends, / collard greens, sliced white bread.”

“promising herself—next time—a thimble, as the blood / ran down into a starched cuff. Mostly,”

“I juggle them constellating a colony”

“soldiers have no self to give away,”

“I’ve found you / a brand of chicken soup with alphabets floating like algae / during a bloom”