Moods for the vaguely exiled:
our leaflike
leaf
was once
a leaf
a shadow
as its
brain
How we leave Ohio is
the first angel
it protects
an erasable
birthmark, the last
angel
a campfire
both
en route
to mother’s
sunburn
Ohio moons:
the child we could not bury
and the child
like it
a ghost crying over the loss of a plain colored pet
unmothered sisterlight
the time between oranges
Ohio aggressions:
I’ve only to pinch myself
to get into
the dream
into the drop of blood that loves my eye
and I hope
it is there
my brother’s
suicidal
chameleon
there,
in the lap of my mother
who was the last
thing noticed
by time
Moods for closure and then the thing itself:
The one I’m destroying and the one you’re saving are not the same. I was ugly, once, but they called me a lifetime behind my back. Poor, twice, but took over for a clown abused by a ghost. On three, my sister’s flashlight takes its little spot from the world. Many of our dead will switch gods.
Ohio religions:
someone I don’t know
described you
to me
not
recently
but anyway
there were animals
not created
by god
confused
by the naming
make death
fear you, not me
we all hear
that kid
& poetry
can’t be
the birthplace
of god
I thought having the child
would change
the child
old soul, some said, and sickness
a dream
god rents
to ghost
Ohio puberty:
they sing
in the locker room
to what
is mine, a scarecrow
for insects
etc
and then
they are saying
it backward
my safe
word
kingsoftrain 