^{For Shira Shaiman, 1971–2014}

It’s easy to forget birth and death
are partners, hovering in a corner
at an otherwise pleasant party.
Right after the arrival of her second
child, the doctor said, It’s
back: the cancer. My friend writes

the update now, subject heading
something with the word “joy.”
The message lists the baby’s weight,
his height, his favorite song—facts strung
along like blue and white pennants.
She tells us, too, that doctors agree:

no more options exist. I read the mass
email in my office, desk lumped
with half-assed student essays, bowl
of Dum Dums, quorum of hand sanitizers.
What is it that I had been worrying about?
We treat these bodies like rented

ponies. Wash them for the big events,
tie pink ribbons in manes,
then load them down again, ignore
them until everything slows to a stop
in a circle of circles. My friend
continues with what she wishes for,

wishing as if such a thing were possible,
as if a birthday cake were being carried
from the kitchen, the rest of us searching
for the light switch and the right pitch.
She leans in, candles casting a yellow
circle onto her face. It’s peaceful, she says.

In my twenties, I worried about what I wanted
to be. Now I know. I want to be old.

My sister and I played catch
with a warm tomato 
from my uncle’s garden
even though my mother
kept warning us stop it.
We were in the kitchen,
my mother at the stove.
Grammy and the aunts
thought it was funny—
they’re just kids. My mother
had cut off our hair 
when it was too snarled
to brush, as we whined
and flinched, even after
she’d doused us
with No More Tears.
Grammy missed taming
our curls into braids,
blamed my mother
for not being patient,
for our crooked bangs.
My aunts let my sister strum
her plastic guitar
even though the strings
kept popping off.
My mother finally snapped
the toy guitar in half.
Mostly she was a good,
funny mom who let us
pick out crazy Easter hats
from a discount bin, 
who gave us Swedish Fish
and Burl Ives records
and taught us to read.
Of course, the tomato
splattered onto the floor.
My sister and I remember
the bloody insides and seeds
splashed on the linoleum 
but not much more.

^{by Lewis Howard Latimer in 1890}

electricity, like air around us, seems impalpable, appeals
to so few senses. but it is capable of being measured,

because my husband leaves lights on throughout the house
as though placing bookmarks. at night, I waltz across rooms

and unmark his pages, twist knobs on lamps’ necks,
flick switches, power us down. this sounds like a complaint,

but it’s how we communicate: he opens the curtains, I close them
minutes later. he puts the dogs out for breeze and sun, I call them

back. I whistle, he picks up the tune, so I relinquish the song. discovery
of the familiar: the language of electricity, the incandescent patent filed

first, fine pen, labeled parts, application slapped on a desk for permission
to write the first chapter. every once and a while, I look up in this house,

and I find there’s not the right light, so I buy fixtures and he installs them:
cuts power, wraps black tape, twists wires until his arms are sore. I take

the victory and twist new bulbs for their first glow. as for the old?
each time, I shake them for the filmament’s soft bell. we happily

confine ourselves to this age of light. we understand the parts, the actions
upon each other—but without entering too deeply into their intricacies.

You are someone with a penchant for dark

beers and pasts, walk-in closets and porch-step

smokes, who liked to ride it out to the depths 

of the middle of Lake Hopatcong, spark

the flint of your lighter, take longing drags

and talk about hipster coffee and sex

with whipped cream designs—and sometimes, your next

lover—and dive in to put out the fag,

swim to the deck to peel off your cotton

boxers and wring them in your fighter’s fist.

It’s too cold in the fall on the water

we fall in, too naked for falling in

naked and docking unanchored like this.

I remember. You’d kiss me and shiver.

I’m not funding a war 
if I pretend the money 
in my taxes are only going 
toward the roads that 
are actively collapsing. 

            Did you hear about the soldiers 
            who stole all of those tractors? 
            Did you hear the company 
            that makes those tractors, 
founded in a country not “fighting” in the war, 
            was able to brick the tractors 
            before they were at all functional? 

There are in-built kill switches in our devices. 

Think about your debts and 
            how much they weigh. 

            US company sends a shipment of bricks 
            equal to the weight of the hard drives they develop 
            to Singapore because 
they can get away with it. 

            Do you think if the bulldozer used 
            to build the Killdozer was an American make 
            it would have been stopped before 
            it was rendered inert too? 
Maybe the make made the autonomy possible. 

I’m not funding a war, 
            I’m in one. 

There’s no recourse to repair 
what we own within legality. 
            Amazon acquires OneMedical healthcare, 
            Amazon sells medical information to the police. 
It hasn’t happened yet but 
            the Ring Doorbells send footage 
            to the police without the consent 
            and the knowledge of the “owners,” 
and who makes the doorbells? 

User on twitter finds out the company 
            that they got their printer from 
            can disable its functionality from afar 
            because their debit card had expired. 
A friend can have their CPAP machine
            forcibly taken away from them 
            if they aren’t using it “enough.” 
John Deere pioneered the addition of remote 
            kill switches being installed in technology 
            and now the idea of one being installed 
            into a pacemaker is not 

            so far off. 

Rendering a piece of technology inert 
            is called “bricking” it. 
            Are you excited to talk to a friend and 
            because of the status of their debts 
a brick is weighed into their body? 

Think about what you owe 
and how much it weighs, 
think about what you give away 
            and where it goes, think about 
            how much choice you really have, 

if you have choice at all. 
            Marvin Heemeyer’s choices were diminished 
            until there was nothing left but to build Killdozer 
            but even so he was allowed to build it 
            without the only options he had left becoming bricks. 

It’s called a siege when you decide 
to wait for your enemy to run out of resources. 
            It’s called “scorched earth” to destroy anything 
            that might be useful to whomever you’re fighting against. 
            Who was the first brick at Stonewall? 
We got past Act Up and now you can’t get 
a monkeypox vaccine unless you can prove 
you’re a gay man who has sex with other men. 

            Did you know you can be arrested for sodomy still? 
            Did you know some John Deere tractors only work 
            if the same farmer is buying Monsanto approved seed? 

Marvin Heemeyer said “It is interesting to observe 
            that I was never caught.”
            Maybe we will get a justified right to repair, 
            maybe the earth will die before then. 
            Scorched Earth. 

We’re in an overwhelming heat wave, 
we’re in the coldest summer of the rest of our lives. 
They don’t make the tools we need 
            to become autonomous anymore 
            because they can ship us 
            our weight in debts instead. 

            What happens when we learn 
            that we can’t use our refrigerators 
because we’re late on rent? 
            What are you going to do 
            if you’re trying to shoot yourself 
            in the head and the gun won’t go off
because your sold healthcare data 
informed the manufacturer 
that because of severe depression 

the guns you own will become bricked? 

What are you going to do 
when you can’t do anything else 
but lower the DIY armor 
            over the caddy of your killdozer, 
            only to find that it’s been rendered 
            a series of bricks? 

            “It is interesting to observe 
            that I was never caught ... 
            somehow their vision was clouded” 

A few days after solstice, I follow bobcat tracks to the lake.
The moss is glowing, the water all thawed, the cold
a kind of wholly coat. A willow, bald without its leaves,

towers over its frail reflection. I sit on a bench, begin to read
old journals. Then I close my eyes and cringe before that girl,

the younger me, makes another bad decision. I want to tell
that girl to stop running, trespassing, stop showing off wounds
to strangers like some perverse shadow puppet flailing inside

the theater of her brooding, restless heart. I tell her to stop and tie
her shoes, to check for ticks. I urge her to banish her urge to tear

the peonies up from the soil just to see the roots naked, render
them wild, but she’s wistful and shifty and cannot hear me—she skips
up the mountain or down the stairs onto the train platform, no coat,

dives dumpsters for breakfast, dances all night. Hitches rides
from boys on motorbikes. Meets lovers: someone who dressed hair,

who threw their ID cards in a fire; someone who could write a line
in an extinct script, someone who studied ocean waves. She’s fallen
for the stories—I know how that story ends. On the floor,

too anguished to write, she curls her spine and holds her breath.
Stop crying, for god’s sake! I can’t look—so I face the willow.

But it also weeps, and now I’m weeping. I’m not on the other
side. Ink leaks from the pen, catching up to the speed of rue
and awe. On this day, I’ve found that girl at this lake, alive

and well after all these thrumming years. I admit I’ve missed her.
What selves have we buried alive, what selves have we survived?

All she wanted—to live and die at once. On a field of ghostly
wildflowers, the willow dreams of catkins—every season,

the bud and the husk, the cathedrals we’ve built out of sorrow.

^{—after Teri Gender Bender, Skin from Skunk Anansie, Joan Jett, Brittany Howard, Teresa Sánchez in “Dos estaciones,” Grisel, my moms, my tías, and all the Jersey Girls from my high school who protected me from bullies (and roughed me up when I needed it, too)}

The women of this barrio, from their iron ribs they  
            belch volcanic, te lo digo. They laugh like factory 
drills as they rub their Peterbilt grill stomachs. 
            They flex their smokestack lungs 
and weave through turnpike traffic while applying 
            lipstick with an archer’s precision.

These chicas flex and boast, hike and hustle 
            and invent curse words so vulgar 
it would make a foreman blush. They make foremen  
            blush while lapping their brothers and husbands 
by downing rounds of shots. With a lower center 
            of gravity, they are the only ones to walk

away from their bar stools upright on two legs.  
            Las mujeres de esta tribu don gorgeous 
scars won from wrestling with a forklift. I once saw 
            one of these bold belles level an hombre in aisle 
three for trying to snatch produce from her cart.  
            She flattened that poor sod with plenty of time

left over to pick her kids up from school. For real,  
            the dauntless dames in this town wield lumberjack  
shoulders y linebacker waists with which they can 
            attract any stallion or femme they desire. They  
never wait to be flirted with; these lasses just barrel 
            right into whatever ignites them. Hell, they’ll court 

in sweaty work smocks. With ankles of oak and a bullet- 
            proof perm, these guerreras volunteer  
at the old folk’s home a few hours before they hit  
            the nightclub or a round of bingo, strike  
the lanes with a monogrammed Ebonite ball. 
            And don’t you dare try to shave any pins on them.

They’ve got a blade in their knee highs they  
            already christened when their beau 
decided he wanted to juggle two flames. 
            Oyeme! Vaqueras from my barrio can snap 
chicken necks five at a time with one hand while  
            stitching their daughter’s quinceañera dress

con la otra. Some ain’t never set foot in a damn 
            kitchen except to grab their fifth Corona 
of the night, because being a school principal 
            and steering a crosstown bus is not for the faint. 
The chicas patrolling my block leap from planes  
            and kickbox. They’ll fix lunch for the kids

if need be, but only if their grindcore band isn’t  
            headlining at the local pub that evening.  
They also play paintball, do the Hustle, pechichon 
            their puppies, raise their daughters to take  
no shit and their sons to cry and to fight  
            corrupt systems instead of the neighbors.

These women carry the tribe on their chromium backs,  
            and yes they’re going to bend your ear about it,  
and you’ll listen ’cause you know they got you when you  
            need roadside assistance. Pues, you can bet on  
being teased when they see you can’t change  
            your own flat. The mujeres of this parish bang

their heads to musicos with names like Sepultura   
            and Suicidal Tendencies as they mosh with boys  
half their age, leaving the pit with their mascara 
            still immaculate. Vale. Las mujeres de esta  
barrio don’t get shot by Mario Testino, are not offered  
            the blockbuster lead, pero seriously who’s got 

                                    time for that tontería anyway?

           ^{“death cannot harm me
            more than you have harmed me,
            my beloved life.”
                        —Louise Glück} 

I tell my daughter first, because her knowing  
forces it to become true. I have to leave dad.  

Nothing is going to change. She nods  
like a priest in a booth, the last fifteen years

staring down at us. Explains, softly, 
how she’s spoken of me to her therapist.

Her worry of becoming my mirror. Tells me, 
I remember you, mom, before him. You were happy.

Oh. Oh. To surrender to your death by someone else’s
hand is still a kind of suicide. Slower. I stand naked

on the porch as she recounts in perfect detail,
(in a poet’s detail) the very things I’d hoped

to disguise. My careful little spectator. Diligent neighbor 
to my unnamed agonies. It is not ungrateful to resist

the tyrannies of obsession. It is no selfish act 
to want, suddenly, to stay alive. My dear girl.

She is teaching and I am learning. I not only  
want to be seen, I want to be seen through.

I return to my house, haunted and waiting. 
I look into the mirror and notice the door.

^{(for Maje Adams)}

When given the opportunity to connect with  
No  
To be welcomed back into your  
Home  
No  
Family? 
Do you take it? 
// 
You reached out your hand and I took it. It felt too good —I pull away almost immediately 
I look behind me seeing the ash of my life I burned  
and I begin to cry 
Through the tears I see you next to me  
Still here  
Still—
Here  
Tears tear through my body and we sit down on the bench. You hold me close  
Rest here as long as you need, im here and im not leaving, but you need me to promise that you
will not go back. You made it too far
Everything in my body says to turn back to the life I knew.  
I look deep into your eyes, and my voice shakes as I whisper ok, I promise  
You do not let go as I watch the life I thought I knew disappear before my eyes.

                The world is a beautiful place 
                                                           to be born into 
if you don’t mind happiness 
                                             not always being 
                                                                        so very much fun 
       if you don’t mind a touch of hell
                                                       now and then
                just when everything is fine
                                                             because even in heaven
                                they don’t sing 
                                                        all the time

             The world is a beautiful place
                                                           to be born into
       if you don’t mind some people dying
                                                                  all the time
                        or maybe only starving
                                                           some of the time
                 which isn’t half so bad
                                                      if it isn’t you

      Oh the world is a beautiful place
                                                          to be born into
               if you don’t much mind
                                                   a few dead minds
                    in the higher places
                                                    or a bomb or two
                            now and then
                                                  in your upturned faces
         or such other improprieties
                                                    as our Name Brand society
                                  is prey to
                                              with its men of distinction
             and its men of extinction
                                                   and its priests
                         and other patrolmen
                                                         and its various segregations
         and congressional investigations
                                                             and other constipations
                        that our fool flesh
                                                     is heir to

Yes the world is the best place of all
                                                           for a lot of such things as
         making the fun scene
                                                and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
                                         and singing low songs of having 
                                                                                      inspirations
and walking around 
                                looking at everything
                                                                  and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
                              and even thinking 
                                                         and kissing people and
     making babies and wearing pants
                                                         and waving hats and
                                     dancing
                                                and going swimming in rivers
                              on picnics
                                       in the middle of the summer
and just generally
                            ‘living it up’

Yes
   but then right in the middle of it
                                                    comes the smiling
                                                                                 mortician

                                           

Whenever I spend the day crying, 
my friends tell me I look high. Good grief,  

they finally understand me.  
Even when the arena is empty, I thank god  

for the shots I miss. If you ever catch me  
only thanking god for the shots I make,  

remind me I’m not thanking god. Remind me  
all my prayers were answered  

the moment I started praying  
for what I already have.  

Jenny says when people ask if she’s out of the woods,  
she tells them she’ll never be out of the woods,  

says there is something lovely about the woods.  
I know how to build a survival shelter  

from fallen tree branches, packed mud,  
and pulled moss. I could survive forever  

on death alone. Wasn’t it death that taught me  
to stop measuring my lifespan by length,

but by width? Do you know how many beautiful things  
can be seen in a single second? How you can blow up

a second like a balloon and fit infinity inside of it? 
I’m infinite, I know, but I still have a measly wrinkle

collection compared to my end goal. I would love  
to be a before picture, I think, as I look in the mirror

and mistake my head for the moon. My dark  
thoughts are almost always 238,856 miles away 

from me believing them. I love this life, 
I whisper into my doctor’s stethoscope

so she can hear my heart. My heart, an heirloom
I didn’t inherit until I thought I could die.

Why did I go so long believing I owed the world
my disappointment? Why did I want to take

the world by storm when I could have taken it
by sunshine, by rosewater, by the cactus flowers

on the side of the road where I broke down?
I’m not about to waste more time

spinning stories about how much time
I’m owed, but there is a man

who is usually here, who isn’t today.  
I don’t know if he’s still alive. I just know

his wife was made of so much hope  
she looked like a firework above his chair.

Will the afterlife be harder if I remember
the people I love, or forget them?

Either way, please let me remember.