all these beetles on their backs
spend an entire afternoon, dying

useless tests on the desk
we've studied
spiders decomposing
fears falling loose

rocks rolling off
the mountain so steady
our furry legs
closed eyes

waiting for life
a dormant shell

spring has left
its skin behind.

too many steps on this stairway.
i will let the moth go out.
i will leave the light turned off.
the ankle will remain injured.
the steps are waiting for me to heal.

this tends to happen when we have no one else.

felt the way it lasted from my throat to my knees
chocolate melting under a sun napping on our sandy beach

13 hours have passed
since we ran there together
and i walked back alone.

totally unsatisfactory.
the medicine does not work,
the headache does not fade,
i cry and run out of toilet paper,
my upper lip leathered raw.
this is not pain, this is nuisance.
there is no pleasure in sleep,
there is pause. when i wake up,
i wait for the entire day to pause again.
finally, at night, i do not have to wait.
the day waits for me now,
to place me on hold while the stinkbugs crawl,
lights on, lights off, all the same.

maybe dream

in it, she was beautiful when naked.

if dream

the woman and my father are entangled and come
into my mother's room while she is sleeping, one by one
destroy the contents of her life, erasing their reflection in her mirror.

with her finger, her nail painted, she lifts the streaks of exchange:
everything for nothing: my mother's clothes, her desk, her bed
with my stuffed animals hovering for a short while before
they, too, followed. she would take with her index
the books, the laptop, both pairs of glasses.

i, crying, hard, like the air
pressure before a storm, see

my father's hand on her face.
blindfolded, he does not see
the way things disappear.

i cry because my father is gone,
my mother is asleep, and this
strange woman is taking my babies
away from a younger me.

so i turned to my mother
and i said
where are you?