before I become somebody
I bleat nobody
1.
I collect ribbon and wax
data streams to hive
press words deep
with shaking fingers
seeding for future deposits
eternal cycle of want and breaking
waiting for a you a maybe
maybe waiting for
nothing more than a sharper
pain in my abdomen
something more insistent than
fading leather interiors
and failing hard drives
the cold press of metal
on back of thigh on
sun-dressed back
owl call and swallow
still warm corpse and
break of day
over buildings just
east of the river
2.
collapse of radio wave
variegated exchange of one virus
for another bone ache
a deluge of track lighting
of language coded into dna
blood pumping sickle
cycle from somewhere
inside somehow abreast
ancillary adjacent blocks
reforested husband
re-wilded wife
a baby that cries like
wolf cries like fowl
cries away days
spent in swamps
emerging unwashed
upstate exchange
of parcel for foot
fool’s acres sinking
into ocean into
sound unbidden
3.
you standing in as
sentry as gated
community as untucked
hem folded under
coffee in the bank building
lawyered on fifth
gray afternoon swallowing
city blocks gentried
inquiry into pea shoots
and property lines
mint spilling
neighbor-ward piecemeal
taxing my
mother buried deep
clay crushing root
smothered flowers
and bee-decked crown
cloud-heavy a
calm swarm a tree
tired of keeping
a secret carried to day