NOTE FOR J

An air conditioner I didn't care about
Kids wrote Achilles in the actual grill with a screwdriver or a stick
The people who live here aren't a threat, they're a promise
Who told me that—I was sleeping
When they said it—years later, I would look at the water tower
I mean, catch it, stealing sunset from the sunset
The way old houses

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OVERHOLSER

He said They say genetics but they mean self
Like blood means self—pigs can't be sold with traces
Of barbiturate in the blood—maybe a pain they take
To distinguish terms becomes preamble to—maybe graze
Not really feeding but just to watch clouds move
Over the field—She said Myself has a word but not myblood
In writing myself is separable but weird to say
Like how a storm has cells, booms, air
Its arm is what makes the whole afternoon dramatic—
My railroad tracks when the clouds separated had
White blisters, the grass we parked
The car in quick light falling out of it
A gleam, milkweed, the burgeoning lot

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These poems were written in our last months of living in TN.