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Wednesday

Light left out all night to dry
Light marching over zinc roofs

Army dressed in black fatigues
Dream squad troll bridge

No name cloud shuffle
No way track waves

I want nothing from today
That my body cannot carry

Nothing more than these
Offerings

6th

I keep company with bees
Fly-bouncing off walls
My eyes latch to them
That me turned fragment
Off plate bees ziggurat

I bristle at the thought
Of a bee’s caress
One inquisitive needle
From each bee
For every pore on me
 
January

Do I mean wasps when I say –
Not this morning
Not last night
Not the company
I keep in a house that hoards me

Taken singly none can do this thing to me
Together they prove too much
They arrive at first light
As I doze they spread
This blanket of compressed

Bodies on me so I wake
Shimmer for my skin
Hum in the room and I dread
Opening my eyes or reaching for my specs

I am boiled down to giant ears
As the colony stirs
I wish I could stay
Glued to the afternoon
Covered by bees

 

2021

Hills head into cloud
Open arms for my swim
Where ice melts
Bones chill

Sun beats
Karuk bus driver
Tells me history
I take to heart

Indians killed by whites
So many that his grandmother
Tells him to marry outside
His tribe to save himself

Chuck points to rocks
He dived from as a child
Sixty years ago
Only to come up blue

Flame on his head
Shoulders from sun
In two minds about
Blessing his clan

He grabs a long stick
Wades crystal upstream
Arms of these hills
Belong to him

Head in cloud
He reclines as this valley
Creek for his path
Twisting into hills

I float in a pool
Made by heart-melt
Flint chips from him
Till my bones spark

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