apocalypse with maybes

fire / brimstone /                        wonderful boom

i think less about the end and more about what’s on the fork next

 but it feels close, doesn’t it?

like i should carry seeds beneath my tongue

a sharp edge to spear with                                     just in case

or who knows                 the world could end up all water

the pot overflowing

skin brined and tumbling, my knees wrestled to my chest

the finale not unlike the start—

 a cradle of ribs, a hard bowl of hips

but a womb is not a fallout shelter

i’m convinced mine isn’t even habitable                          haven for nothing

     no bread left to ration

the root here may be an inheritance of miscarriage

my body’s curfew budding closer                                             doubt

maybe i’ve stood too long in front of the microwave

  impatience the salt of my undoing

leftovers reheat the way they always do—        hot edge, cold middle

      no consequence of milk or swell

but i’ll blame the brewing end

the flint of the world so close to the match

say i don’t want to multiply ache

like i’m some responsible bitch hell-bent on leaving no trace

and when it happens                                when the water crests my throat

      and there’s no one with my mouth

no heart beneath my heart

        i’ll still press my lips to maybe                  and drink

acquired taste

pale and ordinary, my body swept across the hardwood

the same arms + legs wave an X from the floor scatter of what is burnt

/ ash angel /

      not much more than what i leave behind

      here there is boredom moonlighting as ritual

here

ivy snaked around my tongue like a straw wrapper on a finger

except chlorophyll           /         except                i bite

so often i’m a dead ringer

   for a stimulant /little (sometimes) buzz that helps you feel alive

the moon wants a little pick-me-up, lets down her roots

unstuck to the earth by my own muscle, i self-boost

o moon                             i reach for her ladder of nest + blood

carousel an orbit / dizzy what’s alive down there

i watch the body, my body, glittering seed of agency, from above—

too high up to face myself, to shout down

everything you touch is singing, baby, you’re all harvest

21st century Venus, your spine realigned with a trellis

i forget to say this                                     like a lot of words

so i see how fardown my throat i can grow a vine of deficiencies

no one criticizes the moon when she’s a crescent of what she can be

my tongue is heavy and allergic with gravity

the way the tides swell with the rise after they sink

the way even the sun is made up of the dead

in other cornfields

i have pressed my palms down to see what sitting

would be like, hovered before surrendering but never here

i wasn’t worried about dampness, to be muddied

slick-wristed with you would be nice, i just wondered

if the ground could hold

in fact, i’ve never parked a truck in the middle of the road

never shifted on the canyons of cutdown rows

rows where you stopped blaming another wound

another woman and like silks from kernels, i unwrapped

myself from that excuse–

and if any of us don’t get to the truth, soil cracks to dust

no seed can take root– so you told me how bodies

were men you’ve only undressed in your mind and the field

became a room, walls made of wait, abstain, the hollow places

in the ground looked lonely

without a shirt tossed or a shoe on its side and i could’ve said

anything but instead i held my breath, held your knee

as if i could anchor you to what passes between us

for the first time, how clear the night was

love, a flannel buttoned to the throat

if all the husks lying in rows were arms to hold

i’d give them all to you, they are all for you