Turning the Brightness Up to Bleach

What we have made is flyover country.

                    Gulch of drip-coffee pleasance, my beige blanket’s deafening

                                        softness keeping the edges blurred.                            No glint.

Viewed from above the fields stitch together. Belief in the human quilt.

Belief in turning away from the needle’s sharp point, belief that the gauntlet

valleyed by rage and time is a safe space worth carving.                     In her exile,

Circe tended a garden. What a list we could make of those herbaceous borders—

Lavender and saxifrage and smoke.                     A plaid of the dullest knots.

Luxury is all shine—preposterous that still the worry rings:

what is the glamour of violence? Cherry shine.

                                                                                                     Rifle shine.

The louder lights that scream out our edges in the mirror.