—after Michael Heizer

I may be looking at the set of boulders
that is now in front of me, but it is you I am addressing.

You are near or you are far,
depending on the accuracy of the words I have chosen.

When my teacher told me to use this
instead of the, she was talking about the range between

the intimate and the conventional. The gray cluster
is radiant, but it is a melancholy radiance.

To describe it only seems to lean away
from what I intend. Maybe, then, touch is a better way

of explaining the pleasure of that
encounter: the surprise and familiarity of the plant

that you brush past in the dark of your
own house. Or maybe the always-new logic of a dream

is closer to the truth: the falling that takes place
in a place where there is no ground.

The boulders are there for me, an arrangement
and its warren of rooms. One door opening to foggy roses.

Another one opening to a dawn that is the color of tea. 
Surely there will always be new language

to tell you who I am, imagination rousing
out of idleness into urgency, reaching now towards you.

I keep remembering my teacher and she is an image
of joy, the small and wordless music

of her silver bangles. This over the.
One of the rules for writing the poems of a lonely person.

Click the icon above to listen to this audio poem.

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

Copper keeps life from my womb; aluminum  
fills my pores, silver my teeth. My blood won’t hold iron, 
so I take it daily. Food brings a sickness I can’t measure 
under my tongue, only on my waning waist. Some metal 

belongs in the body. The day a grate raised my skirt 
on the street, I noticed only one rush of air between  ore
and whore. The boy who learns to caress his face with a blade 
will grow into a man I’ll pay to slice my skin with steel. Beauty 

is no alchemy: it merely means making space for more things 
that shine. Like the ancient statues men scrapped for daggers. 
Like powder packed into bullets, their touch so intimate
it kills. Like any body in this millennium, I’ll survive 

in silicon chips after death. Until then, lead me 
somewhere precious. Guide me with ungloved hands.

What are these strangers 
sitting on the table in their ruffled
collars. They open, close, open,
emit the scent of cracked pepper 
and honey. Magenta punctuation marks 
at which to pause. Pink commas 
against the green scrub. 
I would trade ten goats for one whiff 
of peonies opening in a vase. 
An ancient proverb says 
you should not let a woodpecker 
see you plucking a peony 
lest it peck out your eyes. 
We are afraid of happiness. 
Peonies are to loneliness 
what wind is to the trees. 
Are they animal? Mineral? 
Vegetable? They move 
as the sun moves. When I 
brought them home 
they were dark. Now, 
a whisper, balletic tulle. 
They are not diminished 
even as they turn to smoke. 

I like how Stevie Nicks speaks like a Martian sometimes.  

“I came here for a reason,” she said in a 1983 interview. 
As if simply relaying the directive from her mothership.  

“I didn’t come here to be a mother …” Bet that sounded  
pretty alien then. Coming from a young pretty woman.  

Like a Trojan horse. Feminism disguised in a frilly dress.   

It makes me think about my birth mother. Like Stevie, 
she didn’t come here to be a mother. Unlike my mother,  
who couldn’t get pregnant but wouldn’t let that stop her 
from becoming what she came here to be. My mother,  

as passionate about adoption as she was about choice. 

I like how that confuses some—those who like to point 
out that abortion might’ve prevented her from adopting. 
I suppose those dimwits came here to be … well, dimwits.  

Still, bet they can’t help but hum along when they hear 
Stevie Nicks songs. Failing to realize that all those songs  
are her children. That she gave birth to them for us.   

“Because,” she said. “I want to enhance this planet.” 

Full-on, no bullshit, no irony, yes Taco Bell 
where I can almost always pull together the 
cash to get dinner, at my brokest 
scrounging up enough change  
for the pillowy warmth of a bean burrito,  
extra red sauce, meant to be eaten  
behind the steering wheel in a parking lot 
or while driving, the wrapper crumpled up  
and thrown on the passenger side floor, 
leftover napkins stashed in the glovebox.  
In high school we’d ditch seventh period  
and drive 10 miles down I-5 to the closest town  
big enough to have a Taco Bell,  
where we’d house as much food as we could 
pay for, lounging in the pinkpurplegreen vinyl  
or the metal swivel chairs we’d knock knees under,  
giving each other dares around fire sauce,  
hoarding packets of mild sauce to douse everything.  
And forever, my love to the Taco Bell employees,  
who took my order when I was drunk or high or crying,  
who listened and fed me without too much judgment  
through high school and college and my thirties,  
and a special love for the two who pushed my car  
through the drive-thru, once, when it broke down  
mid-order. I couldn’t afford a tow until payday.  
They let me leave it in the lot. 
This is how I know labor is entitled to all it creates,  
and that given a chance most of us are helpers, 
we want to help people and to be helped  
by people, amidst the absolute and delicious  
loveliness of ordinary things. 

Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light. 
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves, 
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows, 
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine 
and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath.

I am a child  
of wonder again and 
rain tells me to watch 
for snails and slugs. 

I gather dirt, sand, and sticks 
for the terrarium 
where I make a safe home 
away from footsteps, fast cars, and ditch water.

I don’t want them to die  
so I make them  
a space for living. 

I ask my ma to buy lettuce 
because in the book I got from the library 
I learned they will eat lettuce.

I am  
greedy to learn  
what keeps everything alive.

Their spiral shapes leave shiny trails behind. 
I imagine I am a snail leaving  
magic everywhere I go.