I derive so much from one word.
The license plate that careened into the pole
instead of me that night read
“ prisons” and
I knew instinctively how he felt and
tonight I’ll do:

a spring equinox meditation.
brush my teeth.
cut grapefruit for the morning
and ride the waiting out
pay homage to my Pluto;
my twelfth house of self undoing.
i’m becoming a panacea of my own:
memory, tincture, flowers everywhere,
the fuss of first love never leading anywhere but
here in another meditation
on the river walk
and

draw my poems out of the older sutures:
undo, redress, pamper the wounds .
think about it.
send you a letter.
remember the way grief sits,
unsettled, right after dusk,
right under your chest,
right under your breath:
a blue river from your fingers.
send you that letter
with my wounds
pasted
in the margins.

reminding you to
think about it

pay homage to your Venus.
she is out,
casting cars into ditches
while you cautiously watch the lights
change.
you are holding selenite in your pocket,
standing where they
are now sitting and wilting
in screams, the way you asked:
one more chance please

you snap and they lose their
breath just like that.

“prisons” or “Venus in the 12th House”