Day 27:

 What do you do with a BA in environmental education?

(Inspired by Amanda Lovelace)

Use it to love each robin like a lost child

Treat each child like a song

And discover treasure at the base of every tree

Use it to scream into the void about the broken world

We live in. Tear at power structures like

They are merely crepe paper wrappers and not 

The foundations of a rotting world

Use it to believe in something

The light in the darkness 

Because all these lost children

And fat robins 

Must be worth fighting for

Day 26: for Squee

 Playful paw falls rush across the living room

Now the kitchen, now the bath, little black cat zoom

Mews when she's hungry or she wants attention too

Loves to watch kitty TV, loves to cuddle you

Day 25: For T

 Sometimes loving you is untying knots in fraying twine

And sometimes it's seeing in the dark without a moon

But I like it best when loving you is simple 

Day 24: Fight song

 Fight me with clipped claws

And wooden swords

Let's play-joust like six year olds 

Fight me with the kindest insults you can conjure

Fight me with honey wine 

And sunshine on pillowed grass

Fight me in graceful steps and 

We'll call it dancing

Day 23: Gender

 My gender is being able to name twenty-three flowers

In the order they come out as the spring turns to summer

But not knowing how to open a bank account. 

My gender is the color of the eyes of the first girl I was even in love with

And forgetting her name

My gender is the act of plunging into a clear lake in the rain

And feeling the cool raindrops fall from the sky 

And the warm water as it surrounds me, warmer then the air

Days 22: Daffodil

 Daffodil: 

Bend your golden head and fall in love

Sing just to hear your own sweet voice ring out

Stop and stare at each sunlit reflection

Love water even though you know no drought.

When life gives gifts, don't ask if you're deserving 

Take the abundance as it is: a prayer

To you and life and your still beating heart

The glory of your skin laid sunshine bare

The glory of each sunset is a tribute

To the way you smile in the mirror

Each sunrise is a reverent remembering

Of yellow flowers, later disappeared

Only winter says springtime is a sin

Your reflection is a celebration.

Day 21: For Hannah

My favorite hiking trail is unmarked and 

Unmapped. You are my favorite hiking trail.

Or no,  I am the trail and you are a 

Person treading footsteps along the whole

Of me, from beginning to end. I know

Each bend and each curve and where the summer

Blackberries grow, sweet and rare. You tell me

About the fox that lives to the side of

Me and its kits and how they sound like small

People. They are small people. Do you know

Humans share ninety-seven percent of 

Our DNA with bananas? But how else

Might we be close to all the trail, when we

Take the well-trod turns and know just where to

Look to find the trout lilies in the spring

Or the last lingering goldenrod of fall?

Day 20: For Erryn

For Erryn

Imagine a jar of honey with the comb still

Sitting sticking in that golden light

Imagine the sunshine striking the honey: 

Shining through

Golden light on table feels like home.

Imagine an orange cat who owns the place

No one can sprawl quite like cat can

Cat's muscles are relaxed, 

She drapes herself

Anywhere she pleases and we love her.

Imagine a back yard lit with strings

Of lights that flicker and music underneath

Played by unsteady voices, accompanied

By neighbor on drums

While we drink Elderberry libations.

Day 19: Water Lillies

Monet's water lilies are the John Mulaney of art

Unobjectionable and bland and appealing to the lowest common denominator. 

If a man tells you Monet is his favorite artist 

His favorite food is also probably buttered pasta or plain rice

Also, anyone who tells you Van Gough ate paint probably makes more then seventy-five grand a year 

You're not a shitty person because you're from a class of people who like Monet 

(or so I tell myself) 

You're a shitty person because you never bothered to google 

Kent Monkman or Wangechi Mutu or Keith Haring

The other day my friend advised me to invest in a retirement account

I advised him that not only would I never have that much money as a teacher but also

That Boston and New York city will be destroyed by rising sea levels in the next 30 years 

And also that I didn't think Monet was "ahead of his time"

Which was probably confusing given that we were talking about the stock market. 

When the world is ending and the nastiest thing you can say about your Nazi rapist (former) president is that he's 

"like a horse" 

Can you explain to me why that's funny?

Day 18: for Danika

Springtime: 

The hairs in my toes are turning into 

Dandelions. Which is nice because I used to feel self conscious

And now my toes are bright yellow

And apparently good in salad but remarkably bitter to the taste

I use these courageous weeds to braid into flower crowns.

Day 17: Control Poem

I like to bake soft pretzels

The precision of two teaspoons

Of yeast, two cups flower, one cup

Warm water. And then let it sit.

It pleases me to cook like this

It's a shame you're not a pretzel.

Napowrimo day 16: for Mariyama

In the middle of April

There was a snow that piled up on the green grass

And on the delicate branches of the magnolia trees

The pink blossoms against the white snow

And the grey sky and the black pavement

A poetry teacher told me not to put the word

pavement in my poems

Told me it perverts the perfect natural landscape

Magnolia blossoms and snow should be separate

From square brick buildings and slanted slate roofs. 

The snow settled on dandelions burst from cracks in the sidewalk

And slid off daffodils planted along driveways

And pooled around brilliant purple irises growing in strips of lawn

And slid down gutters to water grape hyacinths nestled among rusting patio furniture

In other words: fuck you Peter Filkins.

Napowrimo day 15: for Bob

Force of habit:

I learned from my mother how to jump subway turn styles

Not that the fair was beyond her, just that she didn't believe

Children shorter then turn styles shouldn't bother swiping 

The canary yellow of a subway card happens to match

The daffodil sitting on my shoulder blade. Even after

I left the city I kept the subway card tucked in my wallet

Because I always held, tucked behind my ear, 

The idea that I might one day return. Forever is a word

That rubs me the wrong way, sand paper on skin kind of panic

Leaving is the relief of a fan in a third story window in the heat

Of summer. But the idea of never

never

Returning is the power shorting out

And the apartment getting hotter and smaller and feeling the sweat on my forehead

Napowrimo day 14: for sammy

portrait of a lady on fire 

She likes to set fires; she doesn't wait for sparks

Bridges: aflame, passions: ablaze, barns: burning

She loves the flames's brilliance; she's scared of the dark

She's scared of the way the earth can't stop turning

Her chest is a war zone her heart just won't leave

Her ribs are sideways toy soldiers

Her mouth is dry with her own fire's heat

She can feel her lungs start to smolder

She forgets how to love, but she knows this is wrong

She knows the sunset shouldn't feel like an ending

But the sun has gone out, and the night is too long

The dark is engulfing, the moon is ascending

Napowrimoday 13: for insomniac dreaming

 She puts the lie in believe, she puts her tongue in her cheek

Her warnings unheeded. She never regrets and frays at the seams

Her ends refuse to justify her means 

She always remembers her dreams but never the meaning.

She's start dust and grit from the road and she can't stand being told

What to do. She's a show-and-tell story with old-school

Guts and glory and she refuses to step forward if it means two back

And maybe that makes her a fool but the terms are her own. 

She spins tales like yarn and there's baleful truth

In her face as she trades in stories, fancies, and prayers

Nothing to her name but cup of tea and an open flame

And when she takes to the trail, nothing but ashes remain.

Napowrimo day 12: for Kim

 Juliet's Reply

You advise I look before I leap

But what is heaven but a dozen missed

Steps? To stumble and fall is ecstasy.

How will I learn the path if I don't stray? 

Maybe he's a fuck boy: he's a toxic, 

No good son of a bitch and the only 

Good he ever did was throw me half a

Flirting smile. Then the next time I will

More clearly measure my own worth against 

His. The next time I will be not swayed with

such ease. I will not fall but learn instead

To fly. 

Napowrimoday 11: For Amelia

From Isolde to Juliet

Think not of love my dear for it will lead

Without question to your own sweet demise

To love is grand, to be sure but instead

Consider the springtime blooming vibrant 

About you. The flowers bursting forth from

The earth and the birds' sharp songs in the air. 

Take all this in and think of him and then 

Remember: this is not worth dying for.

Napowrimo day 10: for Astrid

 You are the song my roommate and I play

Late in the night, windows open, volume

Turned up as high as it will go, we know

Every word. You make the night time brighter.

You are my favorite striped pajama pants

Such a kind creation, and so stylish

And comforting after the day I've had. 

You are the gracious act of coming home. 

You are the smell of popcorn in the air

And the noise it makes from the stove

Carried on springtime air from the kitchen

To where I lounge upon my bed, hungry. 

You are the smile playing across my lips

When I see you again, you are springtime.

Napowrimo day 9: To do List

 Press ear to earth

And hear the pounding of your heartbeat

Does your mouth ever feel dry

In away that reflect the oncoming climate cataclysm

Are you tired of staring every line in your poem with "I"?

The soles of your feet touch the linoleum floor 

But your knees sense the concrete below.

Blood 

Napowrimo Day 8: For Damon

 You put the gay in stargaze

The big dipper is flipping

On its handle come springtime I don't remember

If it's to the north or south

The corners of your mouth and your tender

Smile and I know that I've already

Told you about the stars and they shine and planets twinkle

--Mars is in the western sky but fuck me if I can find it. 

In the winter Orion drew me home

Each night but now that spring's come

My inner compass is swinging without

A magnet to draw it north but of course

I'm lost without you and in the daytime there's no stars

And in the springtime I should be in love but

Here we are. Lost and alone. 

Day 7: For Howie

An ode to Channel 

(a poem about things left unsaid in the Fibonacci sequence)

1. Dog

1. Knows

2. How to

3. Swim, but that

5. Doesn't mean she should

8. Be in the pool unsupervised

1. She

1. Won't

2. Drown but

3. That doesn't

5. Mean she won't eat the

8. Pool noodles and chew the filter

Napowrimo day 6: for Joe

 This spring I envy the robins

And the way they talk such joy in eating worms

It makes me think of pasta at my father's favorite Italian restaurant

They eat worms like they're claiming springtime

As something that belongs to them

I have a red button down I wear when I want to remember what it's like to be in love

But it's not aerodynamic enough that I can fly in it

And when hawks fly overhead and my friends hide in the bushes

And call their two-toned danger alarm

I leave my red chest and my worm behind 

And hide and know that this wait will be over soon. 

Napowrimo day 5: For Anonymous

 I've been thinking a lot about how storm troopers die

When the Pharaoh's army drowned in the red sea, god asked my ancestors

How they could rejoice while his children died

I don't understand why blood never stains those white suits red.

Maybe death can be a sterile thing 

Like chicken thighs pressed tight against saran wrap in the supermarket cold aisle.

Napowrimoday 4: For Sam H

I can't quite put my finger on it--

Maybe the right light would bring clarity

It's a rarity that I see the world without

Distortion--sea water warps sunshine

Your name spelt like "mine" and constellations

twisted and if you blink you might miss it--

I always liked the ocean for its eternities

The seas can't draw them apart--just try to

Capture them in my art and their endlessness

I tried to count the letters in your name

But the light shifted and I lost count--

I know there's the same letters 

As are in "ocean"and if only 

I could teach myself to read

The ripples and the sea weed and the shifting tides

Maybe then I could forget the colors 

Of your eyes.

napowrimo day 3: 10

Here

Under

Concrete eves

Where the rain drips

Into the gutter

And the streetlight flickers 

Across your face in the most

Enchanting golden light, your eyes

Dark and sparkling, words perched unspoken

On your lips. It feels like a beginning

Napowrimoday 2: the road not taken

 I cannot make the perfect tiktok video 

And this fact brings me grave agony

Because I wish to cram everything I am into 60 seconds

And then post it on the internet for strangers to see and approve of

When I broke up with my third partner

They accused me of being afraid of intimacy

But fear is only to approach the true feeling as I would I skittish animal

I would not lie down next to a restless horse and say

"Know me"

Every line of my third partner's fingers are etched into my memory

But if I say this on tiktok for each work I say about 

Their knuckles and the dips between their veins

There are ten, a hundred more about the fingers of my second love (now broken up)

And my fourth and fifth (currently ongoing).

If only I could pull my self out of my skull like a sword out of a stone 

And gradually grind it down

And sharpen it to 

60 seconds and then I could five it back to my third love and say

"There! These people who have never met me

They know me and they love me"

And I lay down next to the skittish horse that is my fear of being known and

It stood up and walked on two legs and

I filmed it and edited it and put it on my tiktok and 

The strangers, they liked that too.

Napowrimo day 1: Deranged

Ode to Persphone

Today I taught the myth of Narcissus to eight eight year olds

Sixteen round eyes staring down at the daffodils unfolded on brown earth

Considering a similar fate:

To be so bewitched by yellow blossoms and sun gold flesh

That your roots dip into the ground and pull water from between rich, dark globules of soil

I did not tell those eight children and sixteen eyes and sixteen ears 

About the daffodil that lies tattooed in ink against my right shoulder blade

 In part, because I do not want them to know me with eight young brains so acutely

As one who has fallen in love with their own reflection

And sunk their own roots into the spring-wet ground for the sake of my own beauty

And in part because at that moment Nina spotted a fat gray toad

And it quickly became the most compelling thing any of us had ever seen.