Because my daughter is afraid. Because she checks
and double-checks the doors, the windows, the ones
even that hang thirty feet above the ground. Because
there might be a person, …

Walls, once milk-white, now scalded from the flame

of years, a broken black line from folding chairs

leaned back, scuffing paint. You can tell

full-timers—propped-up feet, the way they sit

on brocade cushions …

Tie my shoes, my self-portrait running for fun

in the deep woods, poisoned with the soot

of another forest fire in the distance, another Oregon
 

I didn’t know how to spell the …

I like guns in TV shows.
The guns on TV shows are just like guns,
Like the people shooting other people
On TV shows are just like people.

I like …

In childhood, you thought that the world

could be had: consumed like cut-up melon.

Looking at the map curling up the classroom wall—

its gradient landmasses and oceans—

you thought, what sort of …