the next day, the black butterfly
is still battering the cement slopes
beneath the overpass, and my feet
are slamming into darkness, the
pavement meeting pace too quickly,
and everything is salt and wet,
and breath, and fast.

you held out longer than you thought you would
broke the marrow between your teeth, finally,
and spit out the shards. you pressed a hallelujah
in skin with fingernails. you raged.

it was a buzz in the fist
then a stone in your throat,
it was nothing.

it was lips pressed,
stasis.

it was a whisper.

it was the dark thing that twists
the bright band of your iris

so they stop looking for the broken wires.

it was the electric,
the crackle of blood
seizing in a broken vein.

it was nothing.

I am not afraid of these spaces,
these breaths, but the tight places.
the child sleeping in my elbow.

the unexpected gift of a rainy day in summer
gray clouds slumbering swells of summer
a crooked-winged bird limping on the gravel
the unexpected gift of a rainy day in summer
how it lulls, how it fumbles every set intention
an earwig crawling from an orange pepper
a foot muddied, a puddle raveled up the curb
the unexpected gift of a rainy day in summer
stiff-necked stare toward a slow wind, legs
lumbering. so it is how you grew tired.
and how you stretched your arms and scooped
air, and how you grew toward the burbling river.