after Lucille Clifton I almost lose it, in the gym with all the nude bodies that make me love my own despite its lumpiness—your ring. A silver twining around my finger, a silver lining on my worst days. Twisted like DNA, my past & future. How I know you’re sutured to both. You have a new ring now, diamond. Still we meet in this gym and strip down to our skin, our changing bodies. When we were kids we’d peel bark from branches until we found the green center. Now I simply know

MY HUSBAND ASKS ~ after Todd Dillard how do you write a poem? and I hand him a stick. His eyes ask the question. It's a poem, I say and suddenly the air smells like straw and manure, earth and animal. My sister and I stand just inside the barn, the raccoon I nearly touched hissing at us. Even at ten and eight we knew wild creatures could not be near our farm animals. My sister and I, scarecrow-thin and dust-covered, ran to find our father. We expected him to get his gun. We w