Send me a fierce song.
Send me a choir of rage to swallow-
to drown- the caves seeding
between my ribs.

But if you know this season,
cherry-pink petals and hoping buds,
if you know that hope
makes her place deep beneath
the wet and muck, that hope knows
no time, hope knows only
being-
if you have your shovel handy,
you know that there is no room for anger.
If blood bubbles, it spreads
in floodplains, under down covers
and soft giggles, never
over rubble and heart's death,
not in this season.

I've gone through love songs
by the handful, not like pills,
but sunflower seeds, opening, each
of you, leave me your shell. If you were watching
my wake, you would see trails bobbing,
notes walking
across the water in ones and pairs,
falling on waves. But here I am empty, and anger
is echoing in my nothing,
anger stands at the center of being
and shudders time passing, death turning the soil.
Send me a fierce song to cry in the cavern, a voice

to grow hoarse
to grow, and fall, and fail into seedlings,
anything
but the mute tremor of dread.

Hope's home
is in the burrow. Beneath. She lies
couched in bones
and seeds biding. She lies wrapped
in everything that still is, while dread
stretches my arms into cold air
and keens my fingers to the shake
of only echo.

Make me a fierce song,
full of anything but space. I swear
to you, I was reaching up, through
wet and muck, I was remembering soil
on my wrists, I was gathering color
like an aurora of relief,

and now I am husk and coreless,
now the season falls away from me.