let’s get together

Women - Black Rice

first

The girl.  The girl watches.  The girl watches me.  The girl watches me eat.  The girl watches me eat an ice cream cone.  The girl watches me eat an ice cream cone and wishes.  The girl watches me eat an ice cream cone and wishes for a bowl.  The girl watches me eat an ice cream cone and wishes for a bowl of rice.  The girl watches me eat an ice cream cone and wishes for a bowl of rice because she loves rice best.  The girl is lactose intolerant.

I am too, but I am not Atlas-strong.  I am going to be sick to my stomach.

next

we broke the stick
we loved for pushing firelogs
in half–for what?

where is the love
in the dried halves
of my extended
fire-safe hand?
cast them in
as kindling.

last

let’s see where the trail takes us now if we go north and north and if we find your old backwater hole where all the dark pebbles congregate and you can pick them like ripe apple tree apples
and now my legs feel soggy and soaked with tired wet walking soap it’s clean and cold and making me slow and slippery in the mind so let’s sit here and take our sweetnesses to the earth or better yet let’s swash our hands in the brine of rice patches and sing a fury upwards.