to split the surface of the lake
to strip the pelt from our shoulders
where sweetwater salmon drink
the milk of our fallow hearts

we cut our teeth on weaponry
I know we are
blue plumage
the symmetry of spruce
the language of hailstones

to dig a finger through the rampart’s fresh cement
to write a name, never the same one,
before the lake and its gills of raw sky
where the wind whistles a country song forever

it’s time to sober up
from the thirst for certain waters

In houses all alike women embroider
your future on moccasins sold
to tourists. It’s as if the light is waning.

Timushum told me: only thunderstorms still talk
about the real issues.

I got up early to watch the sun
fuck with the lake,
I pinched an eyelash in my fingers, drank your face
straight from the bottle
this is all a little much
for me.

we have hundreds of years
of cataclysm ahead
there are the signs installed side by side
in the chalky veins of the road

the neck, ten centimeters open, knows how to live
it’s to quit pretending
it’s licking the plate and bones
until nothing is left but the echo
of our laughter or the raptors waiting to devour
the future