cotton shark

fluffy paws
scratch my thighs
leaving scars
within a moment's rise

a ringing of keys
singing promptly
they announce
it's time to go out

cotton fur
and shark like teeth
make up my dog,
my biggest love

he is bittersweet
he hugs and cries
but also pushes and bites
this is what divine means
eating olivers
everything is just as alive as us
and we still eat

i wish I could be mary oliver

and name a thousand trees

with love and reality and kindness

and sharing that in a thousand seeds

unfortunately my eyes have been trained for violence

for raised voices and pointed words and artificial kids

for a calculated millimeter accuracy way to get to your nerves

for starting a fire and pretending the house doesn't burn

i second guess thoughts and strategize with mothers

i don't trust anything done purely out of concern

i have never slept far from the enemy

i have never known birds or privacy

how can I think if i am always yet never alone

how could I ever pretend the buried dog is gone
phony (or, my private school teacher is maskless in a pandemic)
no no, no microphone
is a phony excuse
oh oh oh how to treat
the poor, quite literally
those without a voice,
as if they are liars and cheats
or even possibly non
existent!
oh god!
met!
look at their pretty dresses. (ugly shoes.)
Marsha P. Johnson is brought
to the bloody red carpet with
her head and skin
severed,
no one knows it is her.
no one cares.
it is an eye to be met,
pose for the camera,
make it.
the black suits are there, always,
and the poor judge, like ants,
who should get to be invited again.
we are never on that list,
30k, 30k, 30k. maybe
museums were a mistake.
nothing like a costume,
like a game. put it on,
feel, and take it off again.
it is the U S of A, darling.
none of this makes sense.
snake
my heritage speaks of unlikable things
i am drawn to fun and scary and mean
to all that can make my heart sing,
there is no such thing as a fiend

snakes and bats and spiders and black cats

cactuses and frogs and hippos and bulldogs
skeleton hands and chopped heads and teeth
dragons and chimeras and being the beast

there is not much i know of who i am from

the stereotype for the whole continent is what,
snake worshiping child sacrificing, savages with a song
nor castle-y nor lady nor knight nor day nor comfortable cot

there is not much good i attribute to being beautiful or divine

idleness is a privilege for those who can buy out their food
instead of making it. for those with hands, muscles undermined
a system in which they build and make and are treated as uncouth

for those who don’t come from lineages but tribes,

for those whose hands have never stopped holding,
i’m sorry i got caught up in the fairy tales and vibes,
i’m sorry i left my tongue aside for a fake artificial hoping

dreaming of soils made of despair and meritocracy

the same false idol they mashed with unworthy blood
the harsh angles and boxes determining ambiguity or androgyny
the supremacy of stepping on the backs of those who step in the mud

so forget medusa or madonna or tiger king

snakes are mine now, and they always have
we are all part of the same weird continuous thing
so i will paint and write our excluded animals into brass