No one else does this work.
No one minds the inverse.

Her father couldn’t remember the word
for glass, the word for piano.

rain jimmying
the brick that loves me back.

I tried to imagine what they dreamed about all winter, and if they prayed for rain.

I am not its claw feet, the scars
infesting its flat. Nor am I layer
upon layer, a lasagna of thick paint
and stain.

A smack of jellyfish, a charm of hummingbirds

They have come to build a new house in my brain.

i opossum.
i grouper.
i open up my mouth
& GULLET.

You, across the room with rain
for teeth.

We lick our wounds and lay siege.

I found my way back over the dunes
while the first night, blue, rip tidal
shoveled back to the unknown

A week later we all flew out to see family in Hungary, and my grandmother said I looked like a little Auschwitz boy.

His words were little, pretty stings.
I loved him though. I loved his hands.

Everything is possible in the space of the studio.

Like getting a shrug out of a diamond.