golden shovel / anthems for a seventeen year-old girl

I sought misshapen remnants at the park

another country I confused that

could not house me, that conjured your blue car

receding into the horizon Drop-

ped across borders trying to fill that

hole you left You never called my phone

Embarrassing isn’t it? Deprived sleep,

waiting like a wanting dog, dwelling on

tired recollection unremembered The

past clocks my jaw & I don’t duck to the floor,

instead crumpled lights-out lost in my dream

twisted like a shiv in my side About

two countries from now I’ll remember me

splashing in the puddles you left. What now?

On the weekends I finally see you

unhaunted future-filled & how you are

so July, so mid-summer blooming all

the blues away I’ll forget what has gone

bury my former reflections that got

me to the threshold where I witness your

birth A burning ball adorned in makeup

You tear through the past, flick the ashes on

the catalogue of hurt. Severance and

smoke never tasted so sweet. I want you

to rush headlong through desire lines. You are

the reverie of endless winter not

the cratered land of deferred be-coming

When the old ghosts sing again don’t go back