In the beginning of the end she bit the thing she wasn’t meant to bite.
Apple stuck in her throat, one bite taken, then swallowed whole.

To my Ovaries

My cahoonas. My muscular daisies.
Potent white olives. You make me sick.

What is not to love
when you draw back curtains
and taste clouds
in their newness and innocence

At my feet the window sprawls a view of kneaded land,
craggy baked by the hand of the gods, dusted green
with short bit grass.

It hasn’t been this bright all year –
the moon’s white scalp, spot-lit,

a head turned away from a thing
the rest of us fear: unearthly dark

Though I am not a painter
this is to be a portrait
of my parents and my sister.

You too I guess
have studied the surviving starlings

as they swoop and whistle
by the snack trailer at Moorfoot

I loved the tales Luke told me of starving writers,
and the sacrifices they made following their hearts.
Philip K Dick eating dog food. Bukowski’s candy bars.

My compass – its needle set with a sliver of blue stone – spins and spins. Breath mists my snow
goggles. I wipe them endlessly. Even in these thick seal-skin mitts my hands are frozen. I have been
no place as still as this.