My friend once announced to a room of strangers
my poems plunge them into pools of water
I guess that’s a phobia my inability to swim

for more than a minute and always on the shallow
side last night my Uber driver told me she tells
her kids be courageous be kind and went on

to talk about her Ziggy and Shane like I was family
On Tuesday I’ll let them go further than our back
alley what liberation! but then the world

five kids tugged at her jacket last week on the haunted
hay ride I get it I feel invisible forces pulling me
every cardinal direction at once yet clouds keep moving

and I struggle to stay honest I don’t want you
to know lust the long rope tight around
my neck leashed to the wagon and I throw straw

into brown grass to keep the chainsaw
killers at bay though I know the monsters
are actors wielding masks they sell me the part

of me I run from because I know anything
the world gives me lattes Lagunitas
love I return worse than when given

(originally published in The Orchards Poetry Journal, Spring 2020)