last one out of tiller, turn out the light.

streetlamp, stutter me a promise through shard-

teeth: i will not abandon you to the dark

windows. i will not board you as a door

condemned. i will not only enter you as dead.

it’s a different threshold we walk, townies between

worlds, newly-nomad from deep-rooted ghosts.

the diner is metal on all sides, becomes what

it reflects: all neon & flicker. there’s a wound

in the booth corroding to dehisce. gut your stuff

ed animals & bleed them of all their stuff. some worlds begin

a cling-wrapped series of dust-blown figurines who left no space

to move & packed themselves for storage. some mother-

daughter relationships come with particular assembly

instructions & breakage results in a loss of respect. some childhoods pass

in & out of churches, starving for a pinch of flesh.

some gods live in the taste of homemade sour

dough or the mile of forest between you & the next

four-person home. sometimes you won’t know

the god exists until the windows are open & you’re

hurtling downhill & it hits you all at once. what are we made

of? tight fists. high beams. night fog. that bottled feeling

when the jeep free-falls to the bottom of the hill,

windows down & we’re screaming

IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS KILLER WHALES

like our lungs depend on being heard – maybe

there was a gas station back there.

maybe we missed it.