Two Poems

Virgin Timber or Poem That Turns Any Child You Love into a Tree

Little,
this last piece of paper is very small.

When I found you, Little,
you were standing, growing, by the word THIS
written out in stones.

The ending isn’t going to fit, Little.
I can write over the beginning, but the small bones
in your chapped hands will rearrange.

Little, I guessed right, so I got to keep you.
I said the yellow version begins past the smoke,
after the bend in the road, at the first blackened tree.

See, your flesh has healed over abrupt endings before.

I didn’t believe it,
even though your markings appeared early:
the fragrant needles of your hair,
your long, thin, rough face.

I would’ve let you stay warm
feeding small versions of yourself to the wood stove, but they insisted—
the only way to find out which story had been broken off and hidden inside you was to bury you alone in the forest and see what happened.

Poem in Which If There Is One Girl There Must Be Two

Because the morning had another side.
On this side, a field rolled in pleasure. On the other side,
a shiny yard pooled around a grand house.

Our girl, the one who was like a mineral in the dirt of the field, saw another girl
forming in the seriousness and good fortune on the other side. The other girl was taller, blonde, and her mouth was being pried open by the sun.

Our girl felt the sun take her face in its chemical hand. Very slowly, it pressed
the same words onto their tongues. I. Am. Breaking. Open.
You. Are. What’s. Crawling. Out.

Like twin ridges, they stood above a river that flowed with the blood of lonely people.

They grew sick of holding it in, the dull crying, the fleshy interstitial.
It was a long afternoon. They tried to speak or to swim to one another
across the river of bodily separateness, the strong currents
of body-in-waiting, but it was a leaden river and they sunk.
When the light changed, they dove into the river of blankness
but were erased or cut in half.

Our girl picked at a loose thread on her dress that unraveled
the blonde girl’s hemline. It was time for dinner on both sides,
but no one moved. Then our girl started to pull at the thread again

as if to say, the windows you sent now eat away at my little house
but more slowly than whatever it is that is happening to you.