West

—past the dry-mouthed gooseberry bushes, except everything

was dirtied by rain.

Over again, you paint the magpie

we found on the wilting grass, and I mistake its feathers for wings,

your brushstrokes for a shaking wrist.

Notice: this is so much farther than you ever thought

to find me—my stories from behind your shoulder,

their stiff-footed drumming.

A man cupping a woman’s shallow breast on the street corner.

He fears an unpossessible.

Literally—

what we do to another. That we do it until they hurt.