Summer J. Hart

I read somewhere 
 
a married woman is a plague of locusts
such destruction /     oh, such havoc     
 
her lips on yours
 
a decimated field,
a chemical stirring,
lace cut by ancient bodies.
 
the cows starve,
the people starve,
shouting won’t dislodge her. 

The Summer I Turn 33 & Ask Tim to Give Me a Mohawk
 
27 vultures are kettling above the manor house lawn. I laugh because the yoga teacher
posts the video from her outdoor class with the caption:
 
                 I could just lay here all day in Shavasana, watching these graceful hawks…
 
But, it’s not really funny.     Out here they will peck a calf to death. Out here you must
remember to turn your sheep. 
 
I count three dead woolly bears, one mantis, one sparrow. 
 
The night after I receive the bad news, my parents sleep on our couch. My husband & I stay
out,     stuff ourselves silly with meat & gin.
 
We go carrion, carnivore /     stumble through the back gate / squalling like bobcats. 
 
I bite until skin breaks. He pulls up clods with earthworms dangling & hurls them at the fence.
We fuck in the shade garden, on ostrich ferns & pink-blossomed variegated hostas. 
 
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Back into loam.
The sky’s got its nose out of joint 

Every time the clouds spit the dog leans further into the bathmat. 
 
Plastic bats twirl in the neighbor’s eaves. 
 
A jumbo tarantula flashes red eyes through polyester webbing. I watch a woman
sweep the street with a metal detector.     
 
I’m thinking about the way you said it:     Affair.
 
Affair.     Affair.     Affair.
 
& how we are but also can’t have one.
 
I use the language of     [                       ] 
 
so I don’t have to say [     ] or [   ] or I’m a [       ] & a [    ].
 
I never told you this, but when we were in New York I recognized your dress 
from the engagement photos.     I would write to you but my nose. 
 
I would write to you but Trick! I would write to you but have you checked the storm drain.   
 
Unseen crows call by threes. I saw a heron yesterday, flying low
 
I pull on my coat,     
 
snap an icicle off the gutter.
 
Witch’s butter collars the neck of a downed pine.


I remember biting 
 
the waxed lip of a paper cup.     The terrible nose 
of mini-bar champagne.  Poured late.      Too close to the end.
 
Peepers sleep all winter under the snow. 
 
I ponder the alchemy of spring.      
 
A chorus of mud-hidden hearts, 
 
beating
 
their bodies to sing.