this to which I adhere — I press myself neatly into — garments walking by themselves — dutiful folding of collapsible shelves

it is no less catastrophe in that its thought. rot superimposed itself on knuckles — itched into evening — evening stitched a tourniquet that I believed prevented being caught in drywall that housed real mice — real ideas of skeletons spading their way out and around the womb I returned to — to withdraw from chewing food, blunt and smooth accessories falling through limp positions, I felt included in a conversation about raw fish. he said she lies in bed, and it was true, no other way to do it. collecting pins in carseats — floss in cardboard boxes — cassettes in fern pots. it is no less the catastrophe, that it is. it is less than the thought. better I not talk myself into dark pools in silence, water what I slip into more comfortable, daughter to the way I withdraw — bettering a headache, and the faintest smell of dog sends me into scavenger — raging through breath like yards of paper into anxious confetti. collecting premonitions for a day more idle to run away with, a zither was my mind in bed, confiding without my body. bought a gown to keep heat in — reminisce out — I was not one for untempered clout brandished over young children doing “projects,” though certainly I was my own — imperceivable dancing — tremors — I laughed myself sick but not deficient. and still the patter in the walls, the pattern deciphered gradient, she loved no other way to do it. 

ξ

unbroken horses administer in me — a sense of relief — upon the eaves that balance my empty accounts — and one ounce of tea 

accord in sickness, I come alive writhing. more than a tactic of infidelity — who is — placing pins in backs of apple-shaped cushions. to touch a door today, show me the reason — hinder the bay around which sweeps a list of tentacles I could hold in a drawer for no more than erotic pleasure. on occasion, a raisin is shown expanding in reverse on an umbilical vine — to perform that way I would less be full of dismay. always healing in a field. sagely lugging IV drips toward loved ones sunning on a shore. love, I have so much more of with my namesake’s grave in periphery — a betrayal in that — we can’t not do. and still the water relinquishes treasures near my radius — a cat’s paw, a black sack of eggs, dregs of kelp I gather and inhale. what could make me good. unfair that every car has a hood that never leaves it. driftwood armor — I collect you for the next attack — brine I drink to coat my bones. a woman approaches who is not wan — we lie apart around our eyelids, and the earth administers us our dosage. to touch an umbrella without a forecast is my go-to. saying goodbye before the party starts to watch the palms sway — not today — I grow in miniature. 

 ξ

permitted by shadow we follow curved walls — pall bearers to sun setting — I run ahead to catch my breath addressing nothing 

focus I did in the cordiality of a hand severed — never — spaciousness over sleep the leverage I myself make — when stolen solely to one side — invisible needles. an anchored ark — knees alone and animal breath — even a greeting in a dark room, fearful. she grows tearful and obsessed watching tv — permits duress and exits something within herself, and that becomes me. to glide a woman truly cannot — intravenously tethered to paperweights used by small dolls — like the overborn hen, she asphyxiates a moment in rain considering insanely the eyeless worms squirming on concrete — I come alive to dodge my own face bounced back to me –– to shut us up, I enter my pin on a pillow then pay. in niceties negotiate preventing an attack no tender lack in how now little limbs little backlit figments made into animal shapes — little quivering anecdotal posture for fourteen hours a day — not gliding through stop signs walls or hallways. how neutral can you be how blank and ventricular a vessel, I say — to germinate sleep my nerves slow to settle — we make ourselves not, and like the worm, it always grows back. 

ξ

Ellen Boyette received her MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was an Alberta Kelley Fellow and Teaching-Writing Fellow. Her first book of poems, BEDIEVAL, was a finalist for the Slope Editions 2019 Book Prize judged by Solmaz Sharif as well as the CSU 2021 Lighthouse Series Book Prize judged by Shane McCrae. Her work can be found at jubilat, Prelude, poets.org, The Columbia Review, Bennington Review, and elsewhere.