trip wire 

does your emergency have a cabinet of coffee mugs?
i step into my panic like a flower show.
all i want is a world without jump rope 
& without a search party. we bought
the best security system on the market
& put a sign on the lawn that read,
"this is where my life begins." lately,
i consider buying a gun i can use 
as a lover. this is because in the united states
it is easier to buy a gun than to 
ask someone on a date. it is easier to buy a gun
than to change your gender. i put my gun
in a stroller & now i am a family value.
if anyone enters who i don't know they will
set off the alarm system & the statue will come
to make a statue of all of us. i do not want to be
remembered in a place like this. i worry then
about setting off my own system. 
i trace the trip wires like veins.
here is the entrance to my caged & caged 
& caged heart. i want to become 
a "no shoes house" but i am always going somewhere
& therefore the house is always full of
footprints. my shoes try to talk to me
but i have to talk to the gun. my emergency 
has a rescue dog & has taken a family photo. has
vacationed by the same blue ocean.
let's no longer be enemies, let's be
origins. i am fearful that i was born 
of urgency. i do not know who i am
without the trip wires & the sirens 
roosting in my head. maybe i was 
a toadstool. a parrot. a pair of sneakers
tossed over a power line. 
the field below full of feral cats.