Poetry

Since the civilizing process began most of us came to breathe by decree and not in the grace of our mothers

my grandfather came to me in a dream and held my hand with his calloused fingers to remind me I had not, in fact, crawled from a crack in the earth but belonged here

It’s a slow rot—
A decay with many geneses.
There are so many pinpricks
where life seeps
out

Suddenly the trees are tinged with flame.
The green is burning at the corners
like a blade of grass withering beneath a light-directing lens.