the poplar seeds in late june 

i have a habit of mistaking them

for angels-- the downy orbs riding

am exhale across the field behind my house.

the children we were pour out of me

from my double-kitchen door chest,

fingers frantic to catch the poplar seed

before it lands alone in the grass. i hear

your sewing machine late into the night

& i imagine that god picked up the earth 

like a sheet cloth-- set it still with

the presser foot & used it to plant 

the lines of oak & pine that flank 

the back roads, embroidering each 

stop-sign in our skin. asks me to lay my

arm on the table so that he can insert

the telephone polls up the length of 

my veins. don't move-- it'll hurt more.

not the poplar seeds though-- for whatever

reason he trusted them. will you trust

me like a poplar seed when i lose all

weight of my frame? when my bones turn 

translucent & soft? there's too many needles in 

the second drawer of my desk. there isn't

a poplar tree near by. these bodies are 

travelers. you ask me if they ever grow

or if these are just aimless knee-caps--

yours keep coming off-- i go out to find

them & we duck tape them back on--

why waste the thread?

i stay up with the moon-- without you--

as your sewing machine is commandeered by

god. his thimble clicking fingers. i'm waiting

to see one plant itself & start growing.

instead i pluck the tufts out of the air--

i swallow them-- parched & salty like dried meat.

they stick to my insides & the roots take.

i write you a farewell using thread 

bunched up inside my syringe-- injecting myself

in the thigh. the trees erupt-- branches

scrambling. they make a poplar seed of me.

oh at last, at last.