I realize it’s been stationed there / for some time, supple coat / disheveled by rain, watching me, / perhaps wondering what / this human, face obscured / by weeks of scruff, is doing / at this assassin’s hour, perched / inside his kitchen’s bay window,

We spun light our young bodies / from the edge of Grandma’s yard to the middle of the street, / rolling heat waves. We tossed the fruit of that loquat tree / at one another and sucked the smooth pits. We, flesh and blood, / Grandma’s brood.

Hummingbird wingsong in the lifting air. / Loneliness, the engine of loneliness; traffic / all through the trees. Breeze / brings them a pleasure, a partaking, / a finger slipped then wagging in my mouth. Shame / that the hummingbird fears me, / that there is in me something to fear.

The dying,

backlit at my fingers, resurrect in my dreams— a swarm / of mothers, their mouths howling, empty bowls. Empty bowels / rub the children down to bone. Barren wombs gather / tumbleweeds and grief. Grief gathers, but no gatherings.