The Kind Of Poem I Would Write A Close Friend

I never want to confuse the average reader

But none of it is metaphor. Okay,

So I’m a turtle, retreating. My shell a home.

I’ve been a crab and a hungry duck

And a rabbit. I’ve been the fish and the hook

And the one cleaning guts in the stream.

I’ve done so much internal work

My insides are fused and fine-tuned

As a clock made from bone.

Once I heard a room gasp and I too

Looked down over the edge of the window

To see the man who’d jumped.

In Seattle last month I couldn’t help

But track the wreck on the way to the airport

My eyes following chest compressions,

And this week there were three dead squirrels

On the drive home from my morning coffee.

All this to say I have always liked the taste of blood.

There’s a part of me that wants to ask

To be chased. Taken. Scraped against

The roots of undergrowth. I don’t want to run

From feeling. I want to be caught and tackled,

Bruised. I will tell you, I have looked

Devastation fondly in the eyes

And wrestled the knife from his grasp.

When he couldn’t see for fear, I would sing

Until the world came back again.

I wish those were metaphors.

What would I share with a close friend?

I wanted to be done obfuscating.

Now I’m not sure I know how to shut

Off a ghost town well that’s been wrenched open.

I’m not sure I knew before how

To wrench it open myself. I know I was looking

For a tool, or a key, or a message.

Instead I’ve found a patch of tall grass to wait

Until I can dangle again from your jaws.