HOW TO TRAIN YOUR PALATE TO TASTE FRENCH OAK AS TUMBLEWEED ACTUALLY ROLLS BY

You’re so far up into the jettisoned

fractures of birch

I’d thought of leaving things.

The glacier doesn’t give up her living.

In the paralysis of a prism you see your heart

flagless and desperately communal:

your town

is whoever withholds the most

without immolating.

It is uniquely human

to build a mining town in your lungs

just so you can name the glorious end

& pretend it wasn’t imperceptible.