I lost a tooth, a ring, and my weirdo shirt, 
the chapbook I tore apart and put together  
in the middle of the night, 
and that one girl’s laptop.

I still have the pictures we took near midnight;  
eyes too big for my face and head recently shaved,  
new heartbreak learned in my body. The too quiet nights  
jarring in the dark, limbs buzzing— 

On the train the fluorescent lights  
were blinding and my brain was addled  
by sleepless weeks and weeks.  
That girl’s laptop was in a tote bag in my hands and then it wasn’t  
and I was on the platform watching the train disappear.  
How helpless I felt. How everyday was that very day; 
the way everything splintered—

how the world sang. The way  
I could conjure earthquakes;  
The cold of my first winter.  
The way I came alive and burned.

***

I wish I could take it back; in your childhood bed,  
how it was my face without me behind it  
and my hands without my touch as they slipped out of view. 
I wish I could take back that messy breakfast, a racket at dawn,  
the hours smudged by time. Did I eat it? Did I clean up  
after myself? Enamored by the sharp yellowness of the yolk,  
its flavor buttery in my mouth.

I wish I could take it all back; in the hospital,  
ravaged by every dark impulse,  
your mother sitting across from me, promising me  
I would never step foot in her house again. 

The girl I had been, lost  
among the roots behind your house.  
In a black wig, holding a cigarette,  
enchanted by the whispering leaves.  
My footsteps in the snow.

^{translated from the ancient Greek by Ernest Myers}

O ye who haunt the land of goodly steeds that drinketh of Kephisos’ waters, lusty Orchomenos’ queens renowned in song, O Graces, guardians of the Minyai’s ancient race, hearken, for unto you I pray. For by your gift come unto men all pleasant things and sweet, and the wisdom of a man and his beauty, and the splendour of his fame. Yea even gods without the Graces’ aid rule never at feast or dance; but these have charge of all things done in heaven, and beside Pythian Apollo of the golden bow they have set their thrones, and worship the eternal majesty of the Olympian Father.

O lady Aglaia, and thou Euphrosyne, lover of song, children of the mightiest of the gods, listen and hear, and thou Thalia delighting in sweet sounds, and look down upon this triumphal company, moving with light step under happy fate. In Lydian mood of melody concerning Asopichos am I come hither to sing, for that through thee, Aglaia, in the Olympic games the Minyai’s home is winner. Fly, Echo, to Persephone’s dark-walled home, and to his father bear the noble tidings, that seeing him thou mayest speak to him of his son, saying that for his father’s honour in Pisa’s famous valley he hath crowned his boyish hair with garlands from the glorious games.

must look so small, undetectable even,
from the vantage point where I imagine 

a god could see me, and I do sometimes  
imagine a god like a sentient star

out beyond where our instruments 
could find it, then I talk myself 

out of the image. Out of the concept
entirely. From a distance, I know 

I’m an ant tunneling my way 
through sand between plastic panels, 

watched—or not—from outside. 
My puny movements on this planet, 

all the things I’ve done or built 
with my own body or mind, seem 

like nothing at all. But from the inside 
this life feels enormous, unlimited 

by the self—by selfness—
vaster even than the sparkling 

dark it can’t be seen from.

I tell people I have the yellows. 

Gelatinous shade of Omega 3 capsules 
with their fish oil aftertaste and films 
about angry White men in Bangladesh, 
placid shade of egg salad 
left out long after the picnic is done, 
oppressive shade of summer joy 
dulled by the blade of thirst. 
Colour of get what you want but not what you need, 
Van Gogh’s stars, bile and birdseed,
sedate heart of chamomile, the chaff of wheat,
smile-shaped scar showing its betadine teeth.
Best paired with May’s gulmohars, 
bleeding into sky, staining streets, 
koyals whistling themselves to sludge-thick sleep. 
I tell people love is easy. It’s the way the body 
will leaven and rise and crack to keep love fed
that really makes you weep. 

Happy tears?  people ask. So happy.
I tell them my gratitude is like the sun. 
In turns it ripens, in turns it spoils.

When you are a woman attracted to men, you may
fall in love with a person who promised he’d return
to his lover’s hospital bed, but never did;
was advised by his father: Your first screw
should have nothing to do with love; had a mother
who, in one way or another, could not nurse him;
swore on something holy, a scripture, his grandmother’s
grave, that he wouldn’t do it again; has cheated
and been cheated on; used his knee
to open a woman’s legs and took the absence of  no
as an asking, a yes; said they could have
other children just not this one
and dumped her after the abortion; wants
to slaughter the other team; is addicted to being
on top; is addicted to getting high; learned to harden
heartbreak into spikes; was taught to hurt himself
last and others first, as if it were possible
to bruise without getting bruised;
remembers the shame that poured
from inside him like sweat staining the pits
of a white undershirt; who, like you, bears a wound
that, after all this time, carries on with its weeping;
who likes the sound of the word  bully,
not what it means, but its music; who rings
your doorbell and carries behind his back
a bouquet of tiger lilies, all but one closed tightly.