Devil’s Lake

In the beginning there was corn, a whole state
of boys, blonde as the plants surrounding them.

:::

Oh, but why am I here? It seems important to mention all the things that went wrong: once, my mother loved a field & fled from the sight of its singed body. Once, my mother kissed my father & the corners of his lips unraveled & a child twice his size came out. Once, the child cried & cried & cried until someone put something in its mouth.

:::

Near the quarry, a population of humming boy machines—humming love songs & the National Anthem humming drive-in movies & pickup trucks humming ball caps & slow dances & pebbles at your window.

:::

I guess I’m trying to explain what’s happening without leaving: I took his hand & the geese came back for autumn. I bit his lip & the ash spat back my grandmother’s body. I rose from his lap & the dirt sunk a hundred years. I laid in his bed & watched everyone fall into their mothers

:::

I went back to catch a boy who fell from a tree
& the scars folded back into my knees.

:::

Don’t ask me how.Don’t ask if I’m a ghost.

:::

I know, I know it sounds strange climbing inside a boy & crawling out the other end in yesterday’s light.

:::

Somewhere somewhere a school of metal-clad boys. Somewhere somewhere my mother is just a girl. Somewhere somewhere a white man hands her a flower & my eyes flicker blue.

:::

Tell me you believe me. Tell me you’ll come with next time I open his mouth.