executive order

i'm not afraid of kings. 
i take my orders from the sycamore 
& the ghost coyotes who stalk
the corn fields at night. i bend down
to the sage bush & tell her i do not know
anymore what to try to heal first.
there are the ruts in the driveway
from the trucks & the rain. there are
the men who marry their guns.
there is that family member 
who disappeared into a river of fake gold.
his teeth fall out & he lives bathed
in screen light. an order means nothing
to the cat birds & so it means nothing
to me. an order means nothing to the
dandelions & so it means nothing to me. 
i do not know if this is a litany or
a spell i'm casting. i become less & less
sure about who knits the world
the older that i get. i know & believe
in water & spiders. in the brief feast
the wild raspberries offer on the ridge. 
i want to believe that we are enough.
we were not meant to live like this. 
crouching inside words until they bite down.
i have seen friends lose limbs to
a word. swallowed by a chasm between letters.
the desperate reach for the other side. 
i find more & more traps each day 
in this country. 
they do not think they are speaking 
prophecies. they are not false prophets.
they are something much worse. 
what is the opposite of a poet? what is
the opposite of a hearth? 
they think they can cut a deeper & deeper gash
between us & the mountain's shoulders.
she lies down like a sleeping bear. 
but i do not take their orders. 
i hold my gender like a honeysuckle.
drink the nectar. talk to the bees. 
there are still gifts they cannot take.