as your last breath begins

I used to pretend to believe in God. Mainly, I liked so much to talk to someone in the dark. Think of how far a voice must have to travel to go beyond the universe. How powerful that voice must be to get there. Once in a small chapel in Chimayo, New Mexico, I knelt in the dirt because I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. That was before I learned to harness that upward motion inside me, before I nested my head in the blood of my body. There was a sign and it said, This earth is blessed. Do not play in it. But I swear I will play on this blessed earth until I die. I relied on a Miracle Fish, once, in New York City, to tell me my fortune. That was before I knew it was my body’s water that moved it, that the massive ocean inside me was what made the fish swim. Ada Limón (2015)

I don't know no one anymore who's up all night. Wouldn't it be fun to hear someone really tired come walking up your stairs and knock on your door. Come here and share the rain with me. You. Isn't it wonderful to hear the universe shudder. How old it all, everything, must be. Eileen Myles (1987)

Denis Johnson, "Angels"

Raymond Carver, "Gazebo"

was how horses simply give birth to other horses. Not a baby by any means, not a creature of liminal spaces, but already a four-legged beast hellbent on walking, scrambling after the mother. A horse gives way to another horse and then suddenly there are two horses, just like that. That’s how I loved you. You, off the long train from Red Bank carrying a coffee as big as your arm, a bag with two computers swinging in it unwieldily at your side. I remember we broke into laughter when we saw each other. What was between us wasn’t a fragile thing to be coddled, cooed over. It came out fully formed, ready to run. Ada Limón (2018)

Mikko Harvey

I will wade out                             till my thighs are steeped in burn- ing flowers I will take the sun in my mouth and leap into the ripe air                                                   Alive                                                                 with closed eyes to dash against darkness                                            in the sleeping curves of my body Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery with chasteness of sea-girls                                                  Will I complete the mystery of my flesh I will rise                After a thousand years lipping flowers              And set my teeth in the silver of the moon