… And I paint myself in honeysuckle, a
kiss ringing against the sin of dirt. See: a padlock 

deep in the skin of the wild—we grow around it and
wear the iron as ornament …

When Dennis and I separated, he asked where I would stay.

‘Spain, maybe,’ I said, stuffing socks into a suitcase. His parents owned the brick flat where we lived, and he was right to ask: he knew I had nowhere to go. I didn’t care, I wanted to be dramatic, that he worried I might sleep in my car, or be reckless in other ways was what I wanted.

i always thought
babies came from dancing 

i owned every color of
corduroyed pants
they called me fire starter

Step onto the dark-worn footpath. The Thames
weeps slowly into London, then sweeps back,
the children peer at water’s appearance
as light lightens the lengthening grass.

It turns out, not surprisingly really, that after a brief time, call it a 3-page chapter in life, you grow accustomed to being an accommodation.

You begin to think of your scalp as a roof, your hair as shingles.

Some days it’s the pain of a knife, some a sledgehammer;
some days it’s Mom’s recent death, others Papa’s
distant one. Is it the pain of breaking your mother’s
heart by leaving, or the pain of not going far enough?

To kiss you would be to lick a socket, rocket
hard to disaster. I search for a bomb shelter,
some way out of here, some safe room—