in search of the loch ness monster
in my backyard.

i didn't set out to
capture anything other 
than my innate 
a desire for conspiracy--
i was a black & white photograph
for the coffee tables of believers--
bent my neck like a coat hanger
to hold up my blue knitted sweater--
the one i wore in october
when i used the fog as pen ink--
wrote mysteries in the mist
on the bathroom
mirror--
i am still a quiet
& fervent believer
in the loch ness monsters
of our own back yards--
i sit on the back porch--
guard post of 
the white plastic lawn chair--
survey in my father's binoculars
out past the 
chewed up pile of mulch--
watch the soil cough up
rusted keys & door knobs--
the foundation of our houses
was built on the 
thumb print of a lake--
she crawls there at night--
belly over grass-- wails
painful like the slice
of a knife through the 
torso of strawberries--
she's smooth--
looks for water--
lies on her back in the puddles
after an august lighting
tantrum-- 
i find her silhouette
at dusk near the creek
where she is hungry enough
to chew the bodies of crayfish--
we are all hungry like
a loch ness monster--
there was never enough
of a real creature to find
but she's hungry like
a notion--
wide-mouthed as a dream--
she's wondering what it would
be like if all the bird feeders
fell &
the children went out in search
for hummingbirds--
she's wondering how far she is from
scotland & if it ever mattered--
i take pictures of her foot prints--
her ice-hook neck poked out
in between the maple trees--
the fallen leaves come and stick 
to her body--
she becomes a collage--
everyone mistakes her for a flower
girl but i take more
pictures in the hopes of someday
finding a way to explain her
to someone other
than myself perched
on a white plastic lawn chair--
i ask my brother now that we're older
if he ever heard her crying
when the moon made itself
an empty plate in the sky--
i asked him if he ever looked
out at the backyard
to notice the creatures who
made their way here
because they knew there was someone
who was finally looking for them
like we all want to be searched for--
no we don't want to be contained--
we want to be swallowed
in photograph--
written in the mist of a bathroom
mirror--
my brother said
he heard the slide of a knife
through the torso of a 
strawberry & the clamor 
of rusted keys
or was it the low
empty moan of the loch ness
monster eating bird seed
spilled underneath 
the maple trees