“I bet you have a poem about mangoes, too.”

I have three, my dear,
and two about lipsticks stashed inside butts—
and a few about pigeons—
and one about a dead man’s ash on my fingers—
(Would a lick be more sacred than washing my hands clean?)

I have all the poems that this life has given me,
and I have even written some down.

They have all been a surprise to me.

“What is it with poet girls and dinosaurs?”

Can you really not feel the bones
of this poem? How it is just a fossil hoping
to happen?

Can you really not see the enchantment
of being a big thing
when this whole world paints you small?

Can you really not imagine
what it would be like
for your world to be hurtling towards its inevitable end,
but for one blissful lifetime,
not know?

“Your voice is aggravating.”

To me, my voice is the same frequency as a motorcycle driving by as you whisper secrets to your lover in the quietlight.

I blend into the sound of fast wheels and large-bodied cars, and soft, loving sighs.

To me my voice is white noise, and I yawn if I talk too much, sink into the voidless place that I have filled with static chatter.

People say they can float in it, dance in it, but I sink.
Some of us are jellyfish, dynamic and quietlight, and some of us are hippos:
large-bouldered bodies that can’t swim.

I find that aggravating, too.