Michelle Boisseau

After César Vallejo The fury that breaks a grown-up into kids, a kid into scattered birds and a bird into limp eggs, the fury of the poor takes one part oil to two parts vinegar. The fury that breaks a tree into leaves, a leaf into deranged flowers and a flower into wilting telescopes, the fury of the poor gushes two rivers against a hundred seas. The fury that breaks the true into doubts, doubt into three matching arches and the arch into instant tombs, the fury of the poor draws a sharpening stone against two knives. The fury that breaks the soul into bodies, the body into warped organs, and the organ into eight doctrines, the fury of the poor burns with one fire in two thousand craters.

It sweats into the tongue and groove of redwood decks with a Tahoe view. It slides under the truck where some knuckles are getting banged up on a stuck nut. It whirls in the egg whites. Among blacks and whites spread evenly. Inside the chicken factory, the Falcon 7 x , and under the bridge. There’s death by taxi, by blood clot, by slippery rug. Death by oops and flood, by drone and gun. Death with honor derides death without. Realpolitik and offshore accounts are erased like a thumb drive lost in a fire. And the friendly crow sets out walnuts to pop under tires. So let’s walk the ruins, let’s walk along the ocean and listen to death’s undying devotion.

For Eleanor For seventeen years I was caught in the surf. Drubbed and scoured, I’d snatch a breath and be jerked down again, dragged across broken shells and shingle. I loved it, mostly, the need, how I fed the frantic. I’d skipped into that sea. Certainly not a girl, but I could still turn a head as I took the foam between my thighs. Then it was over. Hiss of a match snuffed with spit. The sea had trotted off. I stood in the stink of flapping fish. At first it stung. A galaxy of dimes eyed my sag and crinkles and dismissed me like a canceled stamp, but something tugged at me, silver braids weaving and unweaving themselves and either the path was shrinking or I was getting bigger, for soon the way was just a hair, the extra bit of wit a grandma leaves on her chin to scare the boys, and it led me into a cave crackling like a woodstove with laughter. A landslide opened a seam of rubies and we stepped inside.