A discomfort of steering wheels.

The red ray of stomach lining.

We wonder about the lifespan of a fox:

in captivity three to five times that of wildness.

Because of us, a cast of stairways,

of leaning down, of bad luck.

I’m figure-eighting wheels, getting lost

tying knots between his spine and mine.
When I was a baby, just skin and wonder,

the contents of a coffee cup assaulted me.

We went back thirty-two years on;

had a cuppa a table over. Backbended.

A slingshot of clocks. A roadside bouquet

for each hair stood on end. When I make art

my preferred canvas is wet beach sand.

Finger painting holds no pressure

when shores wash clean my mistakes.
Retrieve the fox from gravelled earth. Sharing pulses,

shaking palms. At sixteen: a funeral for wellbeing.

An unfurling of wings iterated each vertebrae,

catapulting hurricanes to rip up coastlines with each beat.

Fist against hips when lightning travelled down his veins

and made blown glass out of me. Pristine.

How I anchor, how I yield like sand,

grain by grain, as I settle into time.
When Parks said every breath you take

has two possible endings I felt it in my right hip flexor.

Foot shifts to pedal brake but it’s not there

no matter how hard we press. The scent of mahogany,

of wide eyes, of scars on my shins. A concerto

of MRIs where each note is in the signature of eight,

by which I mean we swerve in response to a flash of red,

a foot that won’t connect,

one-hundred-and-ten reasons to stop a breath.