Less of Her
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I’d rather tell you about the waist-high grasses,

starred heads of thistle set rocking by our steps,
sleep in the finger-crook of a fig tree and mottled light
like monarchs stirring her hair.

I would say, Our eyes are fig round.

I would say, The violet spine of Indian paintbrush
is more than I remember.

But a story comes to my window
and it does not speak of willow
or the bodies of low hills.

It has her shadow-damaged face.
It is riddled with bruises the size of his fingertips.

Every time it comes, there is less of her.

Girl: A word I’d offer if she were anything
but a flinch, now, fricative as hard talk.

When I dream about her, the story is redder
and less true: our father’s head split smile-wide
by the right rock, his blood threading saplings
to settle in the low spots.

There is nothing to hold her in place,
nothing to whittle her smaller. She climbs the hill,

thrumming wheat stalks with her new hands,
making everything sing.