This autumn, dead bodied leaves pave the neighborhood

like orange-yellow coffins over my open grave. Their ghosts

windhaunt my nose. The oak altars molting. And am I bad.

Just as there is more to the sky than how it looks,

considering how deadly heavy clouds are.

How many murders raindrops caused in earlier lives.

I make my ancestors learn how to live in wildfires.

Tell my gut angels and guardian feelings to go to hell.

Tell my husband he should be angrier at me. He is never

angry enough at me. He holds the lightning veins of my hand

like they won’t kill him. Touches my harm with his delicacy.

He points to a robin on the cadaver branches like a finger

closing the eye of a corpse, as quivering leaves hurricane

around, says I’m surprised they haven’t flown away already.