The body of a tree
is tied to a wooden rod
to correct the posture
of the landscape—
scoliosis of the outside world.
Oxygen bending at its backbone,
while I’m struggling to breathe
in Utah
houses crumble their architecture
against a skyline of dead grass
the color of wheat
that crawls over a highway
that keeps me moving while I lock my knees
and see the Star of David on a rooftop
Suddenly, I think of your mother
but mostly of Sylvia Plath
and sticking my head in an oven
to warm my locked jaw
and to boil the blood
I had begun to see
rise to the surface of my pink cheeks
in Texas
I remove myself only from this body
to empty my exhausted eyes
into a pillow that is soaking wet
even from five hundred miles away
and I’m learning to love this distance—
it is heavy and silent over a telephone wire
while you tell me about the corners
of a woman with mousy brown hair’s mouth
and how when she touches you
her fingers leave dents in the surface of your skin
that remind you of the spaces in-between airline seats
and that quiet hum of a jet plane’s engine
but they only remind me
of the two years that I spent hiding underneath covers
and trying to make out with the outline of your body
in the early morning hours
while beneath my headphones
in Nebraska
I can hear my brother laughing loud and obnoxious
from the front lawn of the city
that my mother grew up in.
The back of my neck begins to freeze
when the weather drops down to thirteen degrees
I’m smiling
while on the side of the road,
the cows start to stand up at dawn
while they move east
the clouds curl up over the tops of mountains
billowing like smoke
from a house on fire.