You wake up with a done-wrong feeling,
like soured milk, and you served it
to your last chance for love.
You pace the pock-marked field,
stare at the web-lined perfection
of a tarantula’s lair, remember
you were taught to hate them,
to break their bone shell
when they tiptoed into your room.
Everyday, someone is discarded.
Someone stands on a train platform
like an orchid. Everyday,
a man who should’ve parked his car,
bought cigarettes and a parakeet,
is pulled through a window,
his throat stepped on.
It’s not the first time
someone did wrong, and you
smelled your blame
like ozone before a storm.
Every wildfire, every uptick in CO2.,
every hurricane with a Greek name,
that spider hole, its cloudy exit,
your shadow on it, like a halo
of skull shrapnel
on a back seat
next to someone else’s son.