To Extricate the Feeling from the Thing, Think of 50 Ways to Spell the Word “Hurt”

from the kitchen table you hear
a familiar last name comma

first name and see white light
see a face you’ll only ever know

from marching band high
school blue and white

uniform silver threads feathered
hat braces brass instruments;

“another identified victim of
the Orlando Pulse shooting”—

see a face you only knew in
two measures: music and absence.

late Sunday walk down Milton
Street you shake the sting

through the phone of your mom’s
“everyone called but you.”

lupus is a lithe thief so you tell
her about the time you saw

a mouse scuttle in through the
bathroom locked the door

washed your hair in the kitchen
sink the next day and her

understanding feels like a fingernail
clawed into clementine meat.

when you find the pigeon in
the boiler room your landlord

brings a case to the feather fight
and bags you: “toughen up.”

on the train you look for torn
shoulders on blue raincoats, check

bodega oranges for foreign labels,
see a fight in the ferryman’s

fists when he steers the boat towards
Governor’s Island; see everything as

fucked and somehow perfect because
of course it’s fucked—

for six months you watch two bodies
love each other like slot machines

and withdraw at the comedown
of a jackpot; for a year you watch a

woman build an 80-ft platform of feathers
and wax and still pummel because

gravity always misses you most
at your highest. when your father

asks what’s wrong you think
of yet another way to spell the word.

over the phone you imagine the cat
squirm when he grabs it by its scruff

but when you own them they
let you do it. when winter comes

you learn to love that merino itch
because though this coat’s patchwork

was never made for you,
you live in it.