the first girl didn’t have
bobby pins or wiring
or the old-spun tale

​

man puts his hands to work
and it flicks to life, shortwave-radio
sex, a streak of sickness
in the willows
your water-savor glisten
fill whiskey glasses up the middle,
elbow-nudging my death sentence
just to the left of roadkill

​

i’ve never asked for angel words
but i could use one now to tell her
we must give ancestors
to each one of the sorrows
and yet i know
long before the discovery
of the girl
magpies would catch her feet
and rustle bits of future off

​

into the tiniest of pockets.