Olena Kalytiak Davis

Neither Snow Shovel Nor Hoe 
                

There was absolutely no way
to make a life, no matter how much you read,
how much time alone.

A very nice man
veritably strapping and you know what that's for
I booted up, got
my stagger back was suddenly happy thinking
about a possible walk after dark, whence I would not be raped and could
show off a mountain, like it was fucking
mine.

One day he "want to know everything about you"
he "like you even more after seeing you with your kids"
died unawares when given the opportunity
to follow up on why I felt
"kinda saddish and weird:"

Yes, I hear you,
why do I always secretly refer to things?
Things almost no one will know?

Some one is knocking, they have taken a shower,
put on a fancy corduroy shirt and come to tell you
they have googled you
you are beautful
"i must now pack
and go.

in the clear long after 

Spring is cheap, but clean of sky. Long after she used to

meet him on the sly. He didn't say much, because to
speak you need a voice, need lead. Among the dead there were
such fresh ghosts, they were still breathing. Through their
mouths. Time, time, to adjust to an other. An ether
O so—No—too sweet. Intox-icated with permeability. 'Tis nox­
ious, to eat evanescence. However steadily, however slowly.
They stemmed into heady blows.
They missed
the stain. Of blue berries and argument. They missed
their lips. The yew and the thorns. They missed.
Their flaws.

O, to be stung by an errant bee. O, to sting.
O, to see you again. Covered in spring.