Dragging a Horse with a Tractor is One Way to Multiply

The horse

was laying

in the field.

It was a corpse.

No longer neighing,

the horse

was a source

of silence far away

and in the field.

I felt its force

until one day

the horse’s

torso

was chained

in the field.

My dad dragged it, head first,

but rotted away

the horse

became two, stayed in the field.

Dig if You will The Picture

An all-boys Catholic school just before summer,

the seniors blockading the single carpeted stairwell

and the juniors trying to push through—a rite,

we were told. I am there, and in my bag a giant

double-sided dildo, some of my classmates dubbed

Purple Rain, because of its color. The boys grunt

and heave. They scream. That year I wore makeup

for the first time. That day, I was next to a boy

I thought would bully me if I got too close. I nudged

him, unzipped a little to show him what I had inside.

He grabbed the 16-inch silicone phallus and tossed it.

The boys cheered as Purple Rain flopped in the atrium.

I fell in love with my empty bag—how deep it stretched,

and how the straps framed my developing breasts.

Grandview

I crouched to pet the dog that followed

me for nearly a block. It jumped back.

I lunged, and it darted into the grill

of an oncoming car. The car sped off.

I scooped it up. That was your fault,

my building’s property manager yelled.

He kept repeating, You shouldn’t have

scared it. The butcher across the street

had lost power the day before. They spent

the evening tossing bag after bag of ruined

meat into the dumpster. One must

have ripped because all the birds swarmed

the parking lot. The street filled with song.

I buried the dog in the yard of a rental.