Acorns

Collecting acorns,
I hold them to my forehead,
a spectral planting.
I mound wet seed-beds,
streaking my face, brow, and scalp
with handfuls of mud.
The acorns settle,
buried, shoaled against my skin,
rooting through the years.

Do not threaten me
with sleep, you shit-filled morning,
for I breathe coffee.
Do not crust my eyes,
for my dilated lens
hungers for the sun.
Do not slow my steps,
for I have stretched and yoga-ed
and centered my chi.
Do not wither winds,
for I have dawned a thick coat
and challenged the breeze.
And do not kiss me
with warnings of the coming
day, for I am bliss.

If I walk alone
along the morning foothills,
I refuse to see
the moon-dawn glowing,
craggy-blues draining: slow, slow,
Tennessee Autumn
ebbing in rust-reds
across brush-fields and forests,
disappearing stars.
I refuse to watch,
will shut my eyes as I hike,
will huff through my dark.

"Well, how was the play?"
"We left at intermission.
Thus the hangover."

Ignorant of men,
she thinks, "If only I were
love-worthy, or whole."

Legs crossed tight, I watch
two women discuss their jobs
and buying new dogs.
They talk about food,
losing weight, moving away,
husbands, growing old.
They sit close, phasing
through ways of sitting, watching,
but never touching.
I fidget, nervous,
pretending not to listen,
but obviously...

i dont even smoke

cigarettes i didnt smoke
coat my favorite clothes,
so when i get dressed,
want to look good, go out,
i think about your lips,
parted and poutin

but this aint fair, i dont even smoke

friends say do laundry,
freshen up, but that would mean loss,
memory is loss, too, but softer
and these days i try to smile more
so i decided to go out less
and not try so hard to look good
when i get dressed in the mornin,
but your lips and hands stay there

but this aint fair, i dont even smoke

nights i do go out i carouse
around red-dressed, dancin girls
and they smoke like you, kiss too,
but mornins after, crawlin out of bed,
i dont have their clouds around me,
just your old nail polish and lipstick

but this aint fair, i dont even smoke

Scrolling through my phone
I realize I only keep
the unctuous texts

Ashley Billasano

We still had town squares,
gathered there in November,
a new mess declared.

The elders concurred,
we huddled, should have done more,
let her face sting us.

Established rapport
ignored our stiff injustice,
lost, we found our guilt.

We exchanged pictures
of the girl smiling, self-killed,
buried immature.

Once the tears had dried, we left,
her notes scattered, deaf, ink-wet.

Sugar-Ants

Armed with the plastic
shovel from my son's bedroom,
I scoop sugar-ants
out of the pantry,
away from the coffee can,
off of the counter.

Shovel full, I march
toward the bathroom to drown them
and pretend they're gone.

I drink uneasy
cups of morning coffee fuel,
refusing to watch
any lingering
soldiers swim down my gullet
and die inside me.

Catherine, a dancer,
hacks at dance floors with her feet,
bleeds in the shower.

caverns announce the guttural grinding of deep rock-shifts,
her chest wheezes with that earthen creaking

while her eyes wain, flutter through sleep and sense
locating you, losing you, desperate to steady themselves

still; you pray for crises, earthquakes, an excuse,
a chance to crumble and lay open-mouthed on the floor, empty.