Crossover

There is no hole that fits a mouth
i've owned several, once. at the sound
of an evening echo, two roads diverge
into a wood, & here, i've lost every weight
my heart holds. in these garden of primroses,
a grandma announced the sudden fall
of evening into what seems like a wingless
bird compressing its flight into a brushstroke
of dust & feathers. i kneel, into a liturgy
among a rapier-leaf crocus, to undress this
adjective of sunset bumping into my chest.
this is where you pluck ruffled heads
into an old woman’s hat—to pick it later
all that survives a woman’s belly is a man
(no gender implied). you wonder, if it was
worth it. if your struggles aren’t a heather
standing on a stone-edged shoe to follow
the road that diverges into a pod of swamp.
if this holding on, isn't another way to burn
the time you could have egged a prayer
into God’s nest. but. it's a new year soon,
& do you really wish to be the successor
of an elegy? one, & two, & three. a wild
hog counts how many doors that open
to heaven—littered around, like hay & straws
this isn't the way you shake out cold wind,
this is the way you try to fill your name into
the gap where little dead things surround.
like your mouth, your home, & your faith.