i, flightless bird

stranger, will you mug me?
stranger, will you take my body?

i'm always looking for him,
always comparing the length of your
eyelashes
to his.

are you the hawk,
and these my feathers
strewn about the yard?

Saint Anthony and Other Ones We Trust

1990, when, as a toddler, i swallowed my mother's pills beneath our kitchen table
and our yellow-ish Volvo station wagon (or maybe not) sped down Old Watson Road
at ninety miles an hour
the car was airborne to Saint Anthony where i was pumped and charcoaled

we call these miracles

Thank Blessed Anthony, the same Saint
who cut the insides of my throat with a dirty knife and left me to die

Anthony, the same Saint,
who pronounced me dead on arrival,
who left me drugged spitting up my mother's blood for three days

we pray to Who.
We ask, where were you?

what heat did i let off
running around the morning school bus
and what of those home made videos
age eleven
already angry and self hating because
i was not "she"
and no one ever told me

what of the millennium Sundays
we prayed to God and stole from the children's church
we excused ourselves and kissed in the bathroom stall (until Grandma made us stop because (i think) she knew what we were doing)
when he and i climbed on top of that shed
you stood a few yards away eating potato salad and defining judgement
i lied still and quiet while he rubbed against me
just a kid already angry
because no one ever spoke up
we just prayed to god