extinction--poetry

electrocardiogram / don’t look at the line that flattens / without leaping first, still sleeping / ahead of undiscovered country / and the singing to remain here,

They say finch is in the attic running out of songs to sing / tracking circles on sun-dusted floorboards for the

Among the yucca & buggy whips the desert thrums with domestic bliss. They set up store window dummies in cotton dresses, skewed wigs. Cigarette-hewn khaki men

Replacing my veins
Or so I could have believed
From the lupine-light way
You hid your skin within my skin

Beyond the off-white metal door
down the hall past the electric chair
and the dank room where men use
the flying carpet to splay women

In a country prone
to teaching royalty
above all
the hunt,
I’ll throw in my own
two cents

Charisma is an effigy that burns
bright behind bars,
fueled by shame.