Annulled

May− thunder was shaking the house

June− Japanese beetle wiry legs lacing

a finger, 

July, August, September, I have a hummingbird

in a pit of palm

Look: the mesh of trees, the disbanding, hot

` bowl of light sky,

home.

What I want to say is she’s looking in her mirror

& a plot of ants expelling face &

she’s so welcoming:

beaded mouth, thrumming eye

& he’s drinking with her father.

Purple sage is always drenched 

this time of year. It will not die

though I do nothing. 

This drought & skull. I never sent

the postcards, only wrote my words

to overwhelm you      at home. 

What I want to say is I can hear whistling

across a field of flies, sun scatters

veins, amongst the shelter

of my teeth, an ant caught in canine

You remind me of my father,

he told me so,

that & the closing gate

of every story oozes 

no one lasts these days

but we stand akimbo & sheen beetle’s wings

into diamonds,

thorax into a chest of wild cherry.