I think about the smell of the earth

I think about the smell of the earth
often in the spring, scent
of freshly fertilized fields
wafting softly over morning dew.

My nose instinctively crinkles and my emotions turn instinctively annoyed,
but I let the fertilized earth fill my lungs and I am filled with love
and a sense of protection over this place.

The smell of the earth reminds me
of what is real, of what is not
curated for our consumption.

The midwest farmers are real.
The midwest farmers are everything.
The midwest farmers are everything I am not.

I love them for this.

If you are not familiar with the midwest life
then you may not understand what it is
to be made of contradictions.

To all at once be judge and protector.
To all at once be thick and permeable.

Like the soil, the conditions have to be right.
Tillable, the desire to be turned over
irrevocably transformed.

Slipping

We're slipping away

I said

your face told me to elaborate.

Away from what
I don't know
from where we came.

I have amnesia
every day
a different day but maybe not.

Suspended in jelly
my slow thoughts
follow my tendons visibly moving under my skin.

I am made of puppets
you said
I don't understand.

This jelly is red
seeping
I don't understand my pores.

Breathing
the world in
to my skull I am sorry I did not protect you.

I should have
manipulated these hands
into the earth every day I go.

Elegy

Writing, rewriting
an elegy
almost daily
makes her feel more real to me
like back in ninety three
we were so silly
always laughing
our future planning
years together spanning
still now I'm weeping
sweeping, piecing
together broken feelings
of someone gone but never dead to me
trying to find the remedy
too blind to ever see
the love in front of me