Slow Down
I
The Redwood Forest leaves spark-burns on my fingers
wherever I touch you.
The world is kind.
Brilliant girl collides with
brilliant car. The offgreen earth
feels incorrect. This land is your
glasscrack, this land is my glasscrack.
I hate everything that has ever happened
before this. We listen to the slutty silence
of the electric fence.
II
We go home
all night.
The leaves in my mouth are crooked but
in rows. I hate the sounds
of the prayer card I’m chewing.
There is so much good here in the dark
I cannot fathom the good that’s inside
of me. I walk into CVS
over and over.
I lose track of my items,
my friends. I do not think of you.
I run into my dad, and he soon becomes
every aisle, every light.
I take his hand.
He drives me into the Boston International
Museum of Fire, and my face—alive
—is finally everywhere.
