I WRITE PANIC
into the locked kitchen
cabinet, china chipped
& sticky. i write
myself into a bottle
of vodka, sloshing
in waves of bitter
padded tongue.
i write the morning
green & breathing.
i write raw haze,
the flesh of my neck
one great nerve ending.
i write small.
i write ivy up the drain
pipe & higher.
i write dead,
loud & blue, underneath
the floorboard punch
knuckles to splinters & flush
the pain with peeled garlic.
i write pulse & sap.
i write myself
forgiven. my father forgiven.
i write burdened by
the absence of my
grandmother’s language,
snow cone soft powder
pressed to the roof of
my mouth. i write my mother,
white nightgown
asleep under the moon
lying with the bluestems.
