Standstill

There is no body/ still your body/ with smaller limbs. You had a face/ like moon phases/ but with sunlight/ in your eyes. I knew you/ when you were still a nightingale/ that forgot to take flight/ still a secret/ plain as day. Still dust/ still metal/ still water/ still yours. Your hands/ were a story. Your hands/ don’t remember. Each night/ you press your palms together/ in prayer. Your bones/ splintered and snapped. The birds/ spread their wings. Your body/ becoming. Your body/ still becoming/ something else.

Wonderland

She says she had a dream about bodies packed together, blue & bruised & left to bleed. The night melts like oil paint into a gentle blend of cadmium & onyx. I could paint her with the same colors, her hair like stardust, eyes gleaming like an illuminated highway. I don’t remember going down these roads, speeding down the skin of the earth, passing rabbit holes & tears in the horizon that stitched themselves together as we went faster & faster. The radio a reminder that It’s all still here, from coast to coast, the earth with hands cupped & full of holy water, ready to baptize itself. She shouts this into valleys, ditches, & canyons, begs land to heal its wounds. She closes her eyes, eyelashes like paintbrush bristles. I feel so far away, body deconstructed, limbs numb & ripe with cold. It feels like dancing on the river’s tongue, waiting for it to swallow. Think of static. Think of ellipses. You can be defeated but whole. Please, I’m begging you, I’m whispering into every crevice & fault line I can find, don’t turn the radio off.