LittleLottexo

when she first tells you that it's time for her to leave you will walk into the forest climb inside the hollowed sequoia you call home and scrape away the rotting bark with your teeth you will hum over the static of the geiger counter test the carbon and nitrogen in the soil and look for atrazine in the water you will build a fire so warm a fawn will come and rest by its side she will not you will wade out into the ocean, deep past buoys and bottom trawling nets to understand the need to stand still when the waves remind you that no matter how far you stretch your legs this is not your home you will check to see if you planted enough mil

the water in this city reminds me of my second love wraps around me like a silk sheet in Sevilla summer heat something between safety and suffocation like an alcoholic's daughter to a second glass, I keep my distance we follow the blue arteries until all I see is sand soft as cinnamon, I think it must be the finest in the world I lie without a towel, let the smooth granules press into my folds later whisper that it was the first time my belly had seen the sun and make lines of shells in the sand an offering to the oldest giver and taker, mother of tides we go out dancing and someone spills their drink on my shoe and I don't care my arms are

(Full Title: Sitting on a Snow-Covered Picnic Table in the Backyard of my Apartment on Pond Street on a Frigid February Evening in Providence) Cursing silently, I lean forward, hugging my knees to my body. The sound of soft piano keys, (from whose house, I don't know) (from whose hands, I don't know) whispers, coaxing my cowardly eyes open. My body softens, hammers striking strings, producing not a clap, not a crash, but the most beautiful hum. I think of my grandmother, (who has played the piano every day since she lost her last baby tooth, when the porch light was her curfew, and her hair was long and wild, matching the color of her eyes

I think of rivers, pressing wrinkles into rock, pouring the earth and skin into the ocean, never full, bottomless. I imagine dragging my arms and legs on the ground fingers curled as mud digs under my nails and I start to bleed. I imagine reaching her, the chamber for humming of whales, salt buzzing with the sound of songs hundreds of thousands of miles long to an unfamiliar lover. No matter how hard I try to bring bits of home with me, we are estranged. Even the mud lodged in my ears and between my toes sinks when the saline rushes in. I watch my mother, an ancient glacier who has known many suns, who has inhaled and exhaled parts of her

I don't think I'm ready to write poems for you, she whispered, quietly, lovingly, voice dripping down like water droplets on leaves on a cold spring morning while the sun peeks over her window. The sun was groggy, half hidden behind clouds, but we were full as the moon: heavy, as she sunk soundlessly into her crib. The sand feels less forgiving when it's cold, she said, but at least we are less forgotten. The trees held us until we were only pebbles along the shore, rocking against Mother Earth, until her body was wrapped into mine, and I finally felt the drums begin to sound.

My grandmother used to put on a week-long music/drama camp at my church every year. This particular year, we were doing "A Technicolor Promise," the story of Noah's Ark, and I was Noah. I remember sitting at the round table in the back of the church, with the chairs I could never climb on to because my eight-year-old legs were too short. You've got to open your voice, he told me. I was so proud when we came to my elementary school one year and sang with his band, the Dixieland Pops, me, smiling and waving from my spot on the gym floor. John, Ed's pastor for many years, would tell you about the time Ed led the carol sing-a-long at a Reynolds

It was apparent that my sense of danger was lacking by the age of three. That year, we were on one of our many plane rides home from my grandparent's home in northern Canada. Close to arrival, we became entangled in an unexpected snowstorm. Visibility was poor and the wind had a mind of its own. The flight attendant tried to sound calm as she alerted us of the "unexpected turbulence" (in case we didn't already know) but it was clear that landing safely would be a challenge. Movement sickness came in the form of 300 foot drops in a millisecond. Some held brown paper bags tightly around their lips while others silently prayed, but not me. I lov

I am in a crowded room and I am yelling. I am yelling and I am in a crowded room. I am closing my eyes and I am holding my breath but when I feel my swollen lungs scraping my rib cage, I am forced to release the air locked inside of my chest. In the blues of my still closed eyelids, I can see the curvature of smiling faces in this new world I would open my eyes to see. But nothing has changed. I am still here. One girl walks toward me and I recognize her face. I recognize her face as she looks right through me. But without blinking, her arm darts forward and she grabs my side. "I need that," I scream. I only glance down to the hole in my sid

I. There is something about the words that slip off of your tongue, the way you hide, like a shadow from the sunlight something about the way you always cross your arms over your stomach something about the mountains and the valleys that makes me wonder. II. My hands are covered in oil they are covered in oil and I am trying so hard to hold on but I cannot and all I hear is -- -- -- and the sound of your anger being released into the world and the taste of your skin is sinking into my taste buds and suddenly I cannot stand, I am lifting up one leg and falling on the other I am lifting up one leg and falling on the other until I am a p