March 2020

Around us, this one of many houses’ slow, broadening
expansion into ideas about love, bushes emerging as a border,
the drive’s uneven, herringbone undulation of stone
fostering greenly weedy outcrops. The rose,
of a neighbor, sprawling; bins growing smaller and more various,
a new window...

There’s a beast in my belly, so they locked me out of paradise. I circle outside,
search for a new entry; when I throw myself on the gates, the fence burns
   my skin.
Please, my tears freeze on my face. Weeks pass,...

My thumb & index finger
     frame a zero, then an 8

sleeping on its side, & I say,
     Leonardo, show me how

the miraculous scapula
     moves like a torn wing

half-fused, barely unstuck,
     & a life dares to lift...