Don't get me started
about
orgasms
organics
plastics
politics
probiotics
chickens
chattel
chill out.
Don’t get me started about
those who
say chill out,
when someone is raped
every day, somewhere.
When corals are dead or dying.
Ecosystems in peril.
People isolated.
In the windowless office,
inside homes on every street -
the ones with trash
stuck in the stalks of dirt-caked grass.
The ones with towels for curtains.
The ones with swimming pools.
The ones with granite countertops.
Don’t get me started
how my love bit
off pieces of apple –
her movements tender and animal-like,
on the Blue Ridge Parkway
and fed them to me.
One by one
because of a bad flare-up of TMJ,
but not bad enough if you know what I mean.
Don’t get me started.
How Jane Austen was being ironic
when her female characters
took turns about the room
to be gazed upon.
And now?
Teenage girls
turning about the room
on screens
in classrooms
In the grocery store
With their mothers,
their fathers,
a glance too long
up and down
like property
like the meat behind
the glass.
Wrapped and sold.
Don’t get me started
about how restaurants still
use single-serve plastics.
How I ordered a Dr. Pepper
for my son
from a drive-thru and forgot
to ask them to skip the straw and lid.
How regret squeezed
my stomach like a clamp
for days.
How our bodies tell us the truth.
When I told you
On Friday night in bed
about the Dr. Pepper, the straw.
You held me and said,
“Shh. It’s going to be ok.”
Like the whisper of earth.
Your hair smelled of clementines.