She carries wet berries in reusable bags.
Along our block the trees burst
with confessions. Dusk like a knife
sinking into my gut. Her face appears
murderous as the sea & my face appears
murderous as the sea. We replaced surface
with depth until the truth ruined us.
Now the ocean buries our children.
I studied so deep into her history
it became my own. The rain cleans
her spit from my teeth. I gather her axioms
and gnaw their bones. Trees, transgressions.
The priest bends to lick our feet. Love,
if I’m the impact—you’re the leap.
Derek Graf's first poetry collection, Green Burial, won the 2021 Elixir Press Antivenom Poetry Award for a First or Second Book of Poetry. Graf's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Journal, Sixth Finch, Meridian, and elsewhere.
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