Imperatives, and: Circling

IMPERATINES

1

Once we found a Great White toothas long as my son's thumb.Once we dragged a jellyfishto shore and watched it throbbinglike a huge, transparent heart.Once we stayed in pajamasfor five days, waiting out the snow.Last week, a brown-headed cowbird,dead beside our door.Three days later I dumpedthe corpse behind the shed.

2

Chlorine smell catches inhis shaggy hair. Yesterday's stalecoffee, the slant of rainthat wets my windowsill, the shoeshe outgrew months ago, butI refuse to throw away.

3

Braced teeth and tangleof pre-teen limbs vampfor the camera, caughtsquinting or mid-laugh or barelythere, just a halo of red hair hoveringin the back or a crown ofgreen goggles bobbing: my son,unsmiling; the family cursemight skip him, this inward-turning darkness.

4

My father took me earlyto feed the science teacher'sbrown anoles who ate live mealworms,wriggling golden larvaepacked in wheat bran,the smell of which still makes me gag.Once I found a lizardcorpse, part cannibalized, partdecayed. Two days later,wisps of skeleton, filigree of bone.

5

Brown-headed cowbirds layeggs in others' nests, abandoningtheir young. Brown anoles eattheir molted skin. Sometimesthey eat their tails. Sometimesthey eat their young. My skinis as thin as testa—seed coatbeneath a cracked shell.

CIRCLING

Through lattice underthe porch of a condemned

house, a feral cat sizesme up. A barstool's metal foot

scrapes the tacky floor,expletive cracking the din.

Every street corner blinksdelicious permission:

neon invitations, pillow-talk promises, smiling

strangers in drugstorepicture frames. I circle

the block, waiting for a sign:rock star parking outside

Club Charles or a green lightto usher me home?

Each day thirst churnsinside me, my fulcrum

teetering. Each day victoryfeels more like delay.