field mice, lint pocket

a Wednesday poem

whose streets are these that call out ‘come home’ ?
your mother has never rung a supper bell but
this is what you imagine it sounds like.
the aluminum on a can of sardines cracking open like an eggshell
the perked ears of a cat / the whole world, listening

drop a needle just to feel something

the night’s texture like a nubbly hospital blanket
you wonder whose body it once warmed, and what it’s
made of, if this is the fluff mice carry to their dens in the winter

whenever it got cold your mother would fret.
she would sigh, “where do all the animals go?”

a hot breath creating a canvas of fog on the window
into it, with a finger, begin painting
the sun always in the corner of the page always smiling

I spilled my guts / I became a moonbeam.
Nobody understood me / They thought I was angry.

in the summer the flesh of my legs will bear bruises, as it always has,
because once upon a time I fell off bikes and
now? now, I don’t know why they appear.

purple conflagration

”bare,” as in naked, or unadorned, home sick
with red rubbed cheeks

little star noodles twinkling in broth
that felt beret you really, really wanted — and now, you have it

when the good times were happening
it was quite good you didn’t know you were in them.
I wish I could say the same for the bad.
you always know when you’re in those.