March Landscape

I have survived the first spring
storm, wind banging against the blue

bars protecting the windows flanking my bed.
The only thing that moves now is the street

light and it keeps me awake, and the girl
in the glass, who knows I have no plans   

and nothing, but a porcelain body. I
weep into a flat pillow every night,

because I still have not learned how to drive
or stop my insides twisting snake-like when

you tell me that is a deal breaker. I hang
what-we-could-be on the back of a chair

whose arms are peeling. And last year,
when the world shut down all the way.

I want to be the one who decides
it’s over. But I keep finding pieces of

ripped leather in my pockets. There is an hour
before the alarm goes off and I am

1400 dollars rich. The luckiest I’ll ever be,
until my mother dies, and I inherit the diamond

ring she bought for herself. The mockingbird–
white tail striking the same spot on the cable wire

again and again. And the shadow of my
father-parasite I invited in when I wasn’t thinking,

but looking for an explanation for fire
that starts under cold feet and rises up up up.