Status Updates From Full-Time Mammal (Iowa Poet...

Place my bones in a hollow tree
to be a bird’s nest foundation.
Writing this brings me close to animals,
and the rote animal in me that is afraid.
It’s good to say blunt things.
It’s ok to die at times—

“The universe does not have or need a mind,
but it should grow a mouth,
since I would like its voice
to shake the fluid in my cochleae
and ruffle tiny cilia.”

“I am writing the poem to be my parents now, because I give birth to it.
I use metaphors so they fail,
use writing as glasses,
use people as examples of symptoms,
and I’m dying of life,
but Mommy gave birth so she could be seen.
I came out of the womb with a job I can’t quit.”