Ars Poetica

Cutting down Chambers St. 

my pinky toenail comes clean off.

Another little ghost 

I can’t bear to leave behind. 

I’m leaving in particles, breaking 

into what I’ll carry

in a bag or pocket—a collection

of estranged selves. Outside 

its case, the mind is a beehive 

fallen in the wild grasses

of an abandoned playground. 

Except in these moments

when I can sing again

the unexpected. Gifts 

dropped from my dead. 

Messages I stop 

to pick up. A hoof 

half-buried in the ground.