Plume is a pretty word—think peacock feather,
showgirl’s seduction. Even eruption
doesn’t say what the Bacchae knew:
we tear apart our gods to bite
& eat the bits we like. You like
to think you’d live without (Ruth Stone
walked to the pond for water in winter.)
Is this how it’s supposed to be
what it comes to. On the monitor, oil appears
to levitate, a long-form corrido. Now
the clouds look different. Face it:
your American accent is a pistol
a way of worming through.
When brown pelicans can’t swim through
take off your father’s coke bottle
glasses, your skirt made of neckties.
Where eleven workers stood, pull down
your words, pennants in the struck air.