The scar on my throat

I knew a heron once, when it rose up
its wings were the width of both rivers
the length of my woman’s body
fingernail to the tips of painted toes

I saw it snap a little brown bat from the air
mid-flight as it flew low to break
its fast from water
and felt with my eyes
the bat claw its way out from the inside
of the blue heron’s throat

As now I sit by the water’s edge waiting for the skunks
and river rats to emerge
from the holes they’ve torn from the earth
I have needed so long to tell you: sister, listen

 

Terms of surrender

You might be afraid of the dark, but the dark is not afraid of you. Lemony Snicket

When I looked up from the edge
of my bed, it was 5AM
I was dressing for first shift at the diner

Above, the man’s face
staring in at me, two inches from the pane
wasn’t the face of someone kind

He didn’t stop looking
even as he knew I’d seen him
until I jumped

into the hallway, dialing
with trembling fingers, the police
Crouched on the floor, I saw

how his body swallowed
my living room
as he passed

in front of its low window
pausing, then slowly disappearing
from its frame

Two nights later, they found him
because the man came back
He’d been watching me

the policeman said, for months
You don’t understand why
I leave the drapes open

Neither do I
but it might be the same reason
he didn’t run