Tania Runyan

There is no waking without him.
The creases in your sheets remind you
his job is to mess with your life. He stalks you
into the kitchen where the coffee splashes your hand...

On the tollway just south of Kenosha
spring sets the boarded-up porn store ablaze,
topaz dousing the peeling paint,
the harp-notes of ice on the gutters....

We fought for one more sputter
of the old life. Even though a breeze passing
over your sieve of skin could send you
screaming, you muscled up your diaphragm...

This oak took its bad news to the heart.
Lightning struck two springs ago
as I snored between my flashing walls.

Now scallops of orange fungus layer...

The child who labored under the AK-47,
who bore its weight like a claw on his naked shoulder

and memorized the equation of trigger + blood = food,...

      John 20

That woman was the first word spoken...

I am not made to pray. I close my eyes
and float among the spots behind my lids.
I chew the name God, God, like habitual...