I wanted to grow up to be a raincloud over an upstate reservoir during a draught.
Then it was my ambition to become a slender woman, or a book cover cut from a grocery bag,
or a trumpet, or a garden rake, or a handkerchief embroidered with a strawberry heart.
It seems to me it takes great courage to be comfortable in being ordinary. I don’t mean an ordinary person; I mean an extraordinary person who is comfortable being ordinary. It seems to me there might be worse things.
So we make carnitas for the family.
Ten pounds of pork shoulder carved into chunks
big as clenched fists split between two crock pots
set to slow cook for hours.
They used books as weapons.
This is not a metaphor.
Because there were no blankets and they were cold,
the men in cell block L threw books
with intent to do bodily harm.
They rained down from above.
This used to be the tallest living thing
in the house without legs. What happened?
You can’t remember if it was over-water
Whose bright idea was it to start tearing
out pages of poetry and wadding them up
to plug our wounds? The poems I like don’t
even come when you call them.