Devil’s Lake

Spinning, we closed our glitter-painted eyes

& sung the alphabet until it no longer felt

Like someone was renting out space in our heads.

We felt on fire, molten, & passed out public service

Announcements about the bone-strengthening

Benefits of hip tosses & heavy metal. We jumped

Until our jawbones went rubbery & our devil-shaped

Hands glistened with spit. Everyone, in perfect

Unison, yelled, You dog. You silly dog, you, over & over

& over. It was exhausting. People heaped, heart

Smooth jazz or a jibber-jabber Jesus in their molars.

I ran out of oxygen & remembered the sodden days

Of my youth—What a fool I’d been, believing

That, The struggle to the heights is enough to fill

A man’s heart. & what a sucker I still was, trusting

That day’s moonman mathematics. But staring

Up into the clouds, I knew what was next. I hate

To admit it, but I did. I knew, right then, about

The coming hocus pocus. But like everyone

Else, I just stared around dumbly. There we

Were: A foodball field filled, sideline-to-sideline

With La-Z-Boys & bathtubs. I didn’t point out

The darkening clouds. Everyone is afraid already.

An old man looked up at me from his chair

& there I was, looking into my own face.

Tucking a blanket around my wet thighs.

Centering my nice little shawl. Lightning

Jigsawed the horizon again & suddenly, I thought

Maybe it had been right all along—it was struggling

& the heights but I’d been imagining a teeny,

Ill-shaped heart inside me, when

A humongously bloody & engorged lovemonster

Had been suckling inside me all this time.

The air made my lungs pucker. The bonfire smoke

Made me weep. I poured a bit out, then poured out

A bit more, before shaking the last trickle down

My throat. The old man, the old me & a sky darkening

With facts: even the best among us is not innocent

& without good bones, we could not stand up at all.