April 3, 2024 it’s National Poetry Month in here kids

 

There is no bell box on the door
lantern light casts down hard
near my mealy heart
I want to volunteer a standard
method of gloriously happy
geography is elastic night
reverses and doubles itself
seafoam covers my feet
then pulls back for hours
I rinsed my hair in a tide pool
shivered cloudy with rumors
of snow and the pivotal day
John Lennon was shot 
I was eight months pregnant 
a dinosaur driving back
through ash the volcano at
mount saint helens exploded 
my husband never cried he was a dry man 
but I sluiced my guts all over the radio 
the car seat and into my strawberry milkshake
I’m older now than you and it’s no good
in my head I’m not ready to open the door
I hide in the bathtub when guests
arrive cry for ten minutes in there
sucker punched I didn’t expect all the judgement
I can’t even type it now I built a fire
it was so cold I could see my breath both cats
underneath me like rhizomes my head
is a crawlspace there is only room for old
rusted women who write about gardens

and sleep by fires like dogs filling their lungs