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Talk to Your Kids About the Birds and the Bees Tell them it’s not always mutually aware. That sometimes you bloom fully for someone who never brings the sun, or just doesn’t know how to. Tell them nectar is not always sweet. That sometimes it’s silence that gives away the softest part of yourself just to feel real again. Tell them the pollinators are not always kind. That sometimes they just take what they want and fly away, never to be spoken to again.

I was bare as November when you dressed me in black. Made mess with loops pressed hard and soft by pointer and thumb.

She moves like gasoline

in the hot summer night I show you my stars you trace the constellations with your finger snuffing the lights out one by one

Shivering, soaked darkness cloaks Thunder quaking cold limbs aching Thighs pressed tight storm clouds bright

when we first met we recognized each other instantly spoke of our backstory the one that hadn’t existed until now

a yellow isolation gown floats in like a jellyfish. when you drop by I’m too tired to talk, when you leave I am unmoored. The nurse administers a buoy. I cling on waiting for my jellyfish to visit again.

Had the sky always been this blue? In all the years Ge had never had the time to notice. Not until he came here. Maybe it was the deep rich purple of the rhododendrons that made it seem more blue. Or maybe the sky made them seem more purple. He looked down the sloping hill and they were all you could see. That and the enormous bees, dark patches against the sky, hovering, collecting nectar and moving on. They were the size of his thumb and it was his job to tend their sa

She blooms, bees all hum, Birds sip nectar, a sweet crown, Life follows her path.

I went to New York the way a lot of dumb, hungry kids do: lonely, overconfident, half-drunk on the myth and my own potential. I thought I’d find myself there. Reinvent. Matter. Or at the very least, force my way into a better story. I was looking for something bigger. A life with gravity. But New York doesn’t hold your hand. She’s a church of ambition and abandonment. She’ll crack the door, sure. But she won’t save you a seat. You either become something there or you don’