1.
Here is the swan splayed dead
on the bed of the pickup truck, massive
wings blue-tinged—odd,
but I don’t know enough about light
to decode what I see.
2.
When people call a woman
shy, they generally mean
afraid, translating quiet
to a comfortable thing.
3.
The trees slough off blue skins.
4.
When the boy who had done impossible harm
tied the string around my wrist,
he tied the world’s sorrow around my wrist.
It burned like hell.
I feel it still, and don’t
know what to do.
5.
In the image, the swan’s a gross curvature
among lawn tools.
6.
I spinster the perimeter,
ruin my shoes in the river
where the swan was shot
by boys on the riverbank,
our cruelties like mercury
passed palm to palm.
7.
The skins of trees
pool around my feet.
8.
Rain and the river
swollen beside campus.
Students with enhanced permission
bring guns to class.
I pretend the satellites are ancient
to get through this grammar.
9.
Sometimes the river goes see-through.
10.
Over lunch, we discussed the loneliness
of men. I ate
the killed animal
among the leaves.
