Let’s Not Live on Earth. Sarah Blake

summer.

      FOR MAX

      Ok, so you know someone who died horrifically

      Ok, so you know an animal who died horrifically

      In a fire let’s say or a building’s collapse

      Or, ok, so you know someone who’s dying right now

      Except maybe not horrifically

      Except your idea of horrifically is changing

      The way a gun death seemed less horrific than the gas chambers

      Until the country kept ignoring gun deaths

      Now they seem horrific

      And then I really try to consider the word horrific

      And horror and I think about how I only watch horror movies

      In black neighborhoods where they make jokes

      The whole time about the dumb white girl that’s going back into the house

      Until I’m pealing with laughter in my seat

      And I think so much of my country, they are dumb white girls going back

      Into the house, except they’re men, too, and I’m offended by

      The attribution of feminine qualities or I’m offended

      By the qualities deemed feminine because I’m one tough bitch

      Who never has to be one because I don’t leave the house

      I don’t know if I’m mourning you before you die

      I don’t know if language can write me away or into anything

      I’m a butterfly. I’m a pig. I was never in a body to begin with.

      I remember as a child trying to think of what animal

      I wanted to come back as and not being able to think of one

      Because everything is prey to something and my luck

      As a human seemed too great, irreplicable, next time I’d for sure

      Be a child kidnapped or molested or abused

      A mother on her way out of the Y last night told another mother

      How she pinches her son because she doesn’t know what else to do

      And then makes a joke about how she’s going to kill him

      And it’s not a fucking joke, it’s not one

      And I wonder if that would be a horrific death just because

      It’s his mother committing the act

      That seems like enough even if the death itself isn’t torturous

      Or inhumane, and I don’t know what to do with that word anymore

      Because almost every action I’ve seen lately lacks compassion

      And every life I’ve seen lately has misery in it

      Last night a man in my area tried to run a woman’s child over

      Then got out of his car and said, “You dirty Jew, I should kill all of you.

      I should come back with a gun and kill all of you.”

      There are a lot of reasons for people to point a gun at me I guess

      I might die before you I guess

      Because that’s our country right now and either way

      We’ll die without each other a little

      And if I come back as a cricket, I’ll seek out the bird

      If I come back as a mouse, I’ll seek out the fox

      I could do this cycle a hundred times and still enjoy it

      A THREAT

      I answered the door to a young man.

      He looked relieved. And then lustful.

      He stepped aside as if to make

      a place for me to stand beside him.

      I realized quickly that I was the lady.

      And if that were true, then nearby

      there was a door quite like mine,

      and behind it, frantic, livid, the tiger.

      MOUTHS AT THE PARTY

      For a second, the light

      made that glass in her mouth

      look like a knife.

      I’m embarrassed I thought it.

      The woman’s injury

      in my mind before she’d even

      undone her lips.

      But my shame is not my

      violent tendency,

      though I hide them the same,

      near my heart. Which is to say,

      in my breasts, large

      like hers. Who would notice

      the blood in our mouths?

      THE SAFETY OF WOMEN

      Women are not often killed in the street.

      They are most often killed in the home.

      At every doctor’s appointment, I’m asked,

      Do you feel safe at home? The woman

      who should answer, No, most likely ends up

      dead—shot, if we’re going to be specific.

      And I want to be specific, when every vague

      word seems to hurt me, when it’s thought

      the surface speaks to everything needed

      to be said because the woman works

      on her surface alone. Look at my dancing

      on my own skin. Even the shell of me

      resembles nothing you could touch me to

      with words. Reach out elsewhere, your hand.

      YOU ARE CONNECTED TO EVERYTHING