Thomas House Hotel

A coyote
doesn’t know the meaning of autumn.
We can hunt ghosts all You want,
it won’t unscrape my kneecaps.

You wouldn’t get it
if I told You about my ears,
how they’re too big,
how I often hear wind chimes
when buried to my scalp in warm sand.

You found the first leech
nestled under my belly button.
Eyes glassy, void in black tea pools,
You didn’t say it was a leech at first.
But You wouldn’t get it
if I told You about my hands,
how they’re too small,
how they reach, jerk, twist,
pound on the dirt above but do not grasp the chain.

“Because you can’t come up
And not be wet anymore.”
Well, my foot is skidding in the mud of my making.
humid like heat honey like a press of the palm on the chest of slick oil
I’m hanging off the bridge of my nose.

Sever the nape of the rope
That binds and conflicts and completely, openly, fully
nourishes jerk twist callouses.