The Dirt I Turn to Find Our Bones​

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Bear Review, October 2019

reveals we break like river rapids

hiding swollen stones, our mouths 

full of refraction, silt, foam. 

We break like bread

in the grip of a messiah,

break like the morning            

news—all you didn’t know

transpired in the dark.

We crumble like garden soil

in the palms of our fathers, crumble

like glaciers giving themselves

to the sea, like hair, brittle and letting go 

of the dead. We burst

like stored-up belly-

corner secrets. We break 

like flesh can break—surprising at first,

that crimson curl opening

like a flower.