A Woman Runs on the First Day of Spring
—Chicago
When I am a stranger to my own
ruin, twilight reminds me
to give alms to my best sins.
March: the city is purging
in the humility of worms, salt
washing from the grasses.
When I breathe in, I say thank you.
When I breathe out, I say gone,
I say garden, I say guns.
Three crows devour the dead
rat. Look at all that booty,
the man mutters and blows
me kisses. The sky is worthless
and my bulbous ass is always
a dinner bell. I run farther,
I run with a feather inside
my ear, I run from a bird
with a broken neck and follow
the sound of thawing snow.
Aren’t we all boundless
though? The way a dream
secretes the morning after,
the way moths feed on the eyes
of fawn. Two and not two—
vines that strangle trees never
say they’re sorry. I reach
the lake with this grateful
ache in my throat. And if I say
my body is its own crumbling
country, if I say I am always
my own home—then
what does that make me?
źródło: Read A Little Poetry
10.09.2026