Originally published in Cimarron Review, Winter, 2022

Babe Unnatural

You left a conversation once

with a “fuck you,” and felt afterwards

that you had failed that boy, not

the other way around. The world has

longed sour-faced for your service since,

like the cars turning past you

at crosswalks, imagined resentful,

or a woman you knew once

who pulled two little round buds

off a potted plant and when she saw you

seeing her, smiled

as though what she was doing

was charming. You felt it in your wrists,

the way it must have hurt the thing

at the knotted places where

they came off. As your own darkest

child you like to think that

somewhere a witch

in the woods pulls cards

from a deck for you, and you love her

more than anything, even though

she eats moths: your favorite little things

and you have so many

favorite little things. A preacher

told you there are forces bigger than yourself

but never spoke of tadpoles nor

the way his son—the bigger force—used to

pull them from their puddles and set them

in the sunlight. Not even watch, just walk away

and the yelling of his mother for him

was only to put an Easter crown

on his head, so that he came back

to the drought he had wrought

festooned in God’s own self. He spat

in your hair once from the pew behind,

unexpected as the man

on the street who aimed himself

at you and instead of uttering

“beautiful” or “fine” or “come closer honey”

opened his mouth and

said, Girl, deliver your hands to him—

your hands here with you. And

your body just as unexpected when

it uttered Peace, girl,

they’re only your hands