As a child I knew
you loved me
when the bullet
from your gun
ran past my cheek,
burning through
open dusk, screaming air.
The snake’s cold blood
spewing from its neck.
Your figure, lumbering toward me,
terror in your gait.
What I remember –
the smell of your chest,
the snake’s head
staked upon the fence post
and the headless tail,
still rattling. My life
dangling from your core.

David,
The letter you sent said
I was your favorite. It said
you loved me
so much
that you needed to
remind me of that
before you said
the rest.

How easily
so few lines
laid waste to
thirty years, like the bullet
left staked in the
center of that rattler’s skull.

Another girl I had waiting, feeding off
my desire and regret, you too have
reached my aspirations.

I am no longer desired
or lusted for but simply
an afterthought for which
remorse is best reserved.
Oh how the mighty.

And yet
your answer gives me spark so hot
I feel the fire between my legs
like wet and sticky evenings,
groans beneath my breath, fingers
tucked into the corner of my mouth,
you bite down and I am
soaring.

So much in this moment,
my skin glistens.
My skin burns.

We are driving in Michigan,
the skin of the day
loosening over us.
I see the road
twenty miles before it reaches us,
the sky tilting down, the dusk
like circles meeting circles.
I see cornstalks littering
otherwise vacant fields and
red barns.

In Michigan there is evidence
of Florida, waves of wheat
becoming salt water,
the reflection of lagging sunlight
making watermarks at the foot
of every farmhouse.

I am your red barns with white doors,
the harrow over unbroken ground.
You are my dune sand,
sunscorched and sunken
but bright against the soles
of bare feet.