three flies, trailing each other like questions.

‍

And the evening

ahead, a dark bud.

‍

No one knows the fragrance of loneliness like a prophet

or a pastor’s kid at the bottom

‍

of her glass, wine-round and shimmering.

‍

As I write this, the ocean envelopes a column of fire

the color of Satan’s eye.

‍

Every day, I threaten to walk into the sea.

And a rich man and his friends threaten

‍

to launch themselves into the clenched hole

of our galaxy.

‍

Goodbye, Elon. Farewell, Jeff.

The astounding probability of never returning

‍

has never occurred to you. And it has never occurred

to me, searching as I do for the nearest body

‍

of water. There is no sea

close enough for me to enter. Even fewer deep enough.

‍

A handsome man driving the blue truck of my country

approaches me on the porch, where the flies are. Plastic

‍

package in hand, bubbled and happy, he asks if I am Danielle?

Oh to be a Danielle—all brains, and ambition, and legs—

‍

an executive at KeyBank with a highrise loft in the city,

Louboutins for day shoes, two Teslas, and no debt.

‍

Or another Danielle, a personal trainer—all biceps and chest,

cut from the gods—the kind Danielle #1 would fuck

‍

on the side. He asks if I am Danielle.

And though nothing in me desires him,

‍

(not my thighs, not my final frontier)

‍

I almost cry Yes! Yes! I am she!  just to see his face

glow luminous, having named one of my many names.

‍

And the arrowed smiles scattered on the package,

cut like the faces of clowns, tell me

‍

it’s only the imminent truth that counts,

the thrill of requesting and receiving.

‍

I deny him my true name but gift him my mouth, pulled wide.

My own sweat—renewable, pearled, crawls without destination.

‍

Imagine! In all of this, like a child, I still desire to please.

‍

This is my new millennium. No one today has died

yet. Like anything here could.

‍