after Miyo Vestrini
We take the ordinary
out for a walk. Paint ourselves
stupid with pistachio shell,
goose shit, poppy seed,
other delights from a childhood
shoeless in fields
in Michigan’s crumbling palm.
We grow skinny to our feet
which balloon out. We have studied
brooms, learned their secrets,
their peculiar language.
I hold leaves in my mouth
in place of a mouth. Tens of hummingbirds
lift my hair in clumps.
Living is a propaganda
of the body. Dying is nothing
difficult, says the poet
who wished all her life to die.
Militant poet of death, she takes
her leftovers, dry rubbed lamb,
sugar fat carrots in foil
folded to a swan. In the night’s souring,
she doesn’t bother stove or oven,
goes straight for the swan’s neck.
We hold the ordinary between
our teeth, tugging at its arterial
until the unamenable inside
spills and we’re left
alone in a milk cold morning.
David Greenspan is the author of One Person Holds So Much Silence (Driftwood Press). He’s a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Southern Mississippi and earned an MFA from UMass Amherst. His poems have recently appeared in places like Bellevue Literary Review, Crab Creek Review, Denver Quarterly, DIAGRAM, Prelude, and others.
Instagram: @david.greenspan