reset
he decides to ask
if she’s ever followed the dead
her skull bobs a bit like a crane
and he decides she’s pretty this woman-bound bottom-feeder
she draws out a road map
in ink that could be blood
and says something about
more people being alive today
than ever have died
her beak clicks like the end of a pen
and something of his protrudes
he gets a bit distracted tickled with a feather
but collects a stable retort
from the furrows in his brow
he quotes french translations
about how cuteness denotes helplessness
and how dear existence is only relative to sight
i paddle through his little waterways of cleverness
watch crane-girl pack her throat with his trout
and figure he’s got a point
i really should get down
to writing all those letters
dear emily
i have to alphabetize you
dewey never needed numbers for loss
or regret
but these days when names seem to change so freely
when gone looks as good as graved
and when i keep seeing all your surnames
in the faces of women who have big ideas
about speciesism bleeding out
perfect-scale streetmaps i end up in mumbles about
how it would have been nice if someone had left me
anything
to discover
i really would have liked to name the mississippi after you
ink out its bends
in the geometries your limbs make from the side
no one would ever question the way
your legs kick through colorado
how the lake of your fist drills
a hole deep into nebraska
or that new streams like fingers
carve through this city with their current
no one would ever
take the time to check
when they could just tell me
what a great map it is
and point to the places they think they’ve been
| Jeffrey Allen |
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