Caterpillar Towns

  Look at the way the body separates; the individual, round skulls—the rotation, the turn, the hum. The brains lift down into the feet, small propellers. As if you and I were connected, somehow.     August 7, 2014, MLT  ...

I’ll Be Honest,

  Weeds are meant to be pulled. Their wide, twine roots, boxing everything else in. It all takes so little time, the swarm, they take over. I struggle with the beautiful ones, negotiate their responsibility, and end up pulling them up anyway. Guts and roots. A...

Horticulture

  Let’s say I take a bite directly from this tree—straight from the bark. What would you do? I understand. You are worried. You, all moon, all pure, imagine the splinters between my teeth, permanent there like small skulls. It becomes pointless to...

The Promise

  Let me make this perfectly clear: the iron is leaving my body. The calcium, the heat. The organs like cold compresses. Her own, smaller body inside my own is jarring, moving against bone and blood. It pains, and yet it tells me she is still breathing. The...

Sometimes: A Secret

  There is a faun that passes through my backyard, only sometimes, and the bald tip of her tail and her limp are unmistakable. If she comes in the late afternoon, I lean my body against our porch door, and she freezes for me. The sun highlights her, an ear...