COORDINATE VISION

There may not be a whole world, just
             the hole that I know of it.

Though I scale up, ever-after a vista
             that will hold. Water for whatever

dialect of thirst, or map from where
             it flows. Of playground rocks

tossed at my heels, heels cracked like alpine
             contour drawings, drawing

a placebo in the final stage—I’ll proclaim
             nothing. My ache is addendum

to laments long-tenanted in blood less faulty
             than mine; which quakes

when I survey the timeless plates, how
             boundaries shift to constrain.

Equipped with legend and no dead-weight,
             a face of freckles constellating

spangled ways ahead—I toss out the old-
             growth compass. Ask

for small dippers of what is not:  capital,
             settled, primary color; try

ripping perforated paths to let our borders
             bleed. Holiest

of holies. But who am I to approximate
             a shrinking eyelet of hurricane

when every storm I manage to out-wait
             takes another girl’s name?

At last the globe tilts, swiveling my gaze
             from the well-charted path

of my own gale to zoom out, diffuse, so
             dilate:  the Aida, the Boone, the Cate.
 

CARE/FUL

I don’t think I        could care

   less      for the buy-one-/  get-one

           free unless the bye    is some re-

prieve and one     my getting full-/ly

       how       less is all      that I need

besides that TV        left beneath

the olive tree             w/a shaky

 sharpied sign   free

for-all       is saying      all

of y’all—

      please—      free me of this

   broke machine     it is easier to un-

load to free      load load up on

               those free samples

   ample      space           than to make

        a place    and one’s   days full/-y

               of care    as you said     I was free

       to go    away         free to walk

from the curb            take no/thing

with me care-     free        but know:      I never

                     was       or was—

           every day                I chose