I was too young to call him a friend, but I had a classmate once who snuck up
behind a horse and now his body is made of a long time ago.

He is the quiet space in my memory where he never sat next to me again.
Back then, everyone I ever called a friend held fire in their fists

when they talked to me. Their fists were dingy, grime-covered, and grease-slick
as if they were made of horsehair, as if they were untamed and lonely,

galloping and wind-swollen. We didn’t know how to talk about loss,
so we made each other lose. We went to fields to see

who could take the most damage. We went to fields that smelled like the boy
who became an empty space on a Tuesday morning a long time ago.

Now, because I am scared of time and how it moves, I look down at my fists
that didn’t always want to, but have hit so many friends

that the broken knuckles look like bruised magnolias. Listen to me, Please,
when I knock or bang on the table or door and beg for attention.

Please, I don’t know how to ask for forgiveness. I don’t know how
to let anything go. I don’t know how to say anything else

about the boy who had a buzz cut and a flat head, the boy who was kicked in the face
by a horse and died looking up at the sky. The boy’s father must have

found his son with a crushed face, and while running back to the house
with his own son in his arms, must have said something raging

and spiteful to God. This memory is my starting point when I think backward
and apologize for all of our fists coiled tight as key rings. How could we not

break the mirror we look at in the morning? How could we not swing
at the different versions of our faces staring back between

the fissures? The hurt and mangled parts of us loved the blood dried brown
on our skewbald knuckles, and we had nightmares of being reined in.

We needed someone to help us change. We needed someone to force us
into confronting the uselessness of our violence.

But no one came, and our fists swelled unbridled and restless, wild and afraid.

I like the lady horses best,
how they make it all look easy,
like running 40 miles per hour
is as fun as taking a nap, or grass.
I like their lady horse swagger,
after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up!
But mainly, let’s be honest, I like
that they’re ladies. As if this big
dangerous animal is also a part of me,
that somewhere inside the delicate
skin of my body, there pumps
an 8-pound female horse heart,
giant with power, heavy with blood.
Don’t you want to believe it?
Don’t you want to lift my shirt and see
the huge beating genius machine
that thinks, no, it knows,
it’s going to come in first.

When a hurricane sends
Winds far enough north
To put our power out,
We only think of winning
The war bodies wage
To prove the border
Between them isn’t real.
An act of God, so sweet.
No TV. No novel. No
Recreation but one
Another, and neither of us
Willing to kill. I don’t care
That I don’t love my lover.
Knowing where to stroke
In little light, knowing what
Will happen to me and how
Soon, these rank higher
Than a clear view
Of the face I’d otherwise
Flay had I some training
In combat, a blade, a few
Matches. Candles are
Romantic because
We understand shadows.
We recognize the shape
Of what once made us
Come, so we come
Thinking of approach
In ways that forgo
Substance. I’m breathing —
Heaving now —
In my own skin, and I
Know it. Romance is
An act. The perimeter
Stays intact. We make out
So little that I can’t help
But imagine my safety.
I get to tell the truth
About what kind
Of a person lives and who
Dies. Barefoot survivors.
Damned heroes, each
Corpse lit on a pyre.
Patroclus died because
He could not see
What he really was inside
His lover’s armor.

you want to eat me
out. right. what does it taste like
you want to eat me right out
of these jeans & into something
a little cheaper. more digestible.
more bite-sized. more thank you

come: i am greasy
for you. i slick my hair with MSG
every morning. i’m bad for you.
got some red-light district between
your teeth. what does it
taste like: a takeout box
between my legs.
plastic bag lady. flimsy white fork
to snap in half. dispose of me.

taste like dried squid. lips puffy
with salt. lips brimming
with foreign so call me
pork. curly-tailed obscenity
been playing in the mud. dirty meat.
worms in your stomach. give you

a fever. dead meat. butchered girl
chopped up & cradled
in styrofoam. you candid cannibal.
you want me bite-sized
no eyes clogging your throat.

but i’ve been watching
from the slaughterhouse. ever since
you named me edible. tossed in
a cookie at the end. lucky man.
go & take what’s yours.
name yourself archaeologist but

listen carefully
to the squelches in
your teeth & hear my sow squeal
scream murder between
molars. watch salt awaken
writhe, synapse.
watch me kick
back to life. watch me tentacles
& teeth. watch me
resurrected electric.

what does it
taste like: revenge
squirming alive in your mouth
strangling you quiet
from the inside out.

Last night the apple trees shook and gave each lettuce a heart
Six hard red apples broke through the greenhouse glass and
Landed in the middle of those ever-so-slightly green leaves
That seem no mix of seeds and soil but of pastels and light and
Chalk x’s mark our oaks that are supposed to be cut down
I’ve seen the neighbors frown when they look over the fence
And see our espalier pear trees bowing out of shape I did like that
They looked like candelabras against the wall but what’s the sense
In swooning over pruning I said as much to Mrs. Jones and I swear
She threw her cane at me and walked off down the street without
It has always puzzled me that people coo over bonsai trees when
You can squint your eyes and shrink anything without much of
A struggle ensued with some starlings and the strawberry nets
So after untangling the two I took the nets off and watched birds
With red beaks fly by all morning at the window I reread your letter
About how the castles you flew over made crenellated shadows on
The water in the rainbarrel has overflowed and made a small swamp
I think the potatoes might turn out slightly damp don’t worry
If there is no fog on the day you come home I will build a bonfire
So the smoke will make the cedars look the way you like them
To close I’m sorry there won’t be any salad and I love you