NINA PURO

Actually You Were Never Gonna Get Their Stupid Farm / Plantation, So Stop Caring—When They Die Off Their Fascist Scion Will Take Over, Not Us

When the phoenix is reborn the land has changed,
but the phoenix is the same. Loud. I guess we always start

with fear: by the lake my mother sent me an umbrella, a stolen
sunset. I’ve never been as good as glass, but I know

where the cracks are. I drink my drink. I try. I pick my nails,
a lucky number. S., hold my arm. I’ve not touched bad

wire. No, much sun touches me. I consider my emergency
contacts: shells buried in the trundle bed, shot fixed by it. I try

on cheap child-labor cottons, layer static. I wake up and forget white,
white. Let’s bask in crushed styrofoam until sun’s a seam

to rip teeth through. No white man has no hold
on me. I’d be lying if I said I still believed in sunsets

or that my face in the glass-bottom wasn’t becoming
one. The boat’s hold fixed me lying. My fingers wanted to braid

A.’s hair. I sat on them. I mean I’m afraid
to connect because I’m afraid to impose. I sat on hold

all morning. I’ve stopped pretending I know
about umbrellas or why they collapse. I found H.

where it ends: with fear. The needle always moves north
& my veins always roll. Let’s build a ritual from the ashes

of old ways to not freak out. I swarm out, leave my dresses
collapsed. No, I’m not scared I’m a light growing big

in a tunnel. I mean I’m not scared it’s over I climb the stairs
onto the ocean floor. When those girls lived still, shooting,

shot I’d find them fists, curled there. Now, I put
my bread where it can soak into the blood, tongue sawdust.

It’s good to pray on how what was built for us
by the dead was built by grifting hands.