“I have built myself/a safer body, covered the rot with rot. Sometimes I can hear that little/boy//I tucked away”

— Teacher’s Pet, Hieu Minh Nguyen

For Arkansas

 

What might grow from this

half-mound of piled rot, orchard of almost

 

dead   blooming mouth of mine

that failed   pills,   monoxide,   god, 

 

the prayer   a wound dug

so often   I feel small

 

and with too little spine   how soft

my own voice pulls to earth

 

to ask what good is this single life

I have come to cherish   in moments

 

this skin loves itself   for every failure

of an end I am truly grateful   now

 

I am so far from the edge of this country

there is no water I cannot see across

 

the winter here is nothing deep enough

to lull the dark   which is to say, everything,

​

I hope, is becoming okay   some days

all I have left is what?   I have survived

​

and some days that is enough