PUBLISHED: March 2, 2020
Cutting down Chambers St.
my pinky toenail comes clean off.
Another little ghost
I can’t bear to leave behind.
I’m leaving in particles, breaking
into what I’ll carry
in a bag or pocket—a collection
of estranged selves. Outside
its case, the mind is a beehive
fallen in the wild grasses
of an abandoned playground.
Except in these moments
when I can sing again
the unexpected. Gifts
dropped from my dead.
Messages I stop
to pick up. A hoof
half-buried in the ground.