I wake up mornings snug in my bed-puppet.
Not the liveliest in my repertoire,
but wait, it gets better: next is my pants-puppet,

Now is my turn to speak, if I
can claim it, tipping myself forward,
letting my tongue fall with a soft,
an inward, an almost inaudible click.

Catch! It’s a quarter, right? You got it? Good.

I am singing of something loose in your blood
where it roves without homecoming, never turns back,

This is a city of bridges,
though the water has mostly fled;
a city of ambitious span

My miracle cures left her of two minds. 
Pillowed in the bed, she would seem to be 
all acquiescence, even eagerness,

Tartarus’s footless offspring who spray fans of glyphosate
    mixed with Styx water over farmland regularly,
technicians of os agrotóxicos for cash, I am weaponless

Poor Aunt Midge, who: 1. refused to change
however times did; 2. spread a) expansive memories
through Maine and b) jarred orange marmalade on scones;

A pity the selfsame vehicle that spirits me away from 
factories of tedium should likewise serve to drag 
me backwards into panic, or that panic should erect 

Maidenhair borders the upward trail,
trims the margin braided green
and lives here—thrives—in the dark
beneath these arches, in this