Kitchened

The puppy idolizes windows.
On hind legs she paws
the low sill, scratching,

sniffing for breeze. Outside
a golden retriever lounges.
The little dog whines,

recalling the planes of the big
dog’s back, her mouth
filled with wads of his fur—

she hankers to dangle from his pale
neck above the yellow clover.
I have stopped looking

out of windows. I am
kitchened, stifled in my mind’s
house. Even in afternoon

light I stall at the garden
border. I am cabbage,
layers nested in.

Oh, to be cantaloupe,
to flower with insouciance,
vine into the next yard—

the fruit rough-surfaced,
celled with design, spilling
sweet seeds from the hollow inside.

Postcard from the Mother Ghost

Hammer yourself a ladder.
Lean it against the familiar,
and climb like deep-rooted
squash vines through daylight
and blue-white heat.
Climb into twilight, its pockets
emptied of fireflies. Do not
worry that you’ll vanish,
that you’re alone. Let
the ladder lift you beyond
the heavy face of night.

Turn the postcard over.

See the peonies I’ve brushed
into bloom, how they curve
like hands. In the pale life
that comes, there is no
climbing—only the heart’s
circulation of time and desire.
Only a sweep of words,
the sheen of petal and leaf,
the way love ascends
like dandelion fuzz—the way
it doubles back, like prayer.