BEE LB

following a trail to its end

i want to open into the mouth of a pearl
but instead i open into the mouth of my grief.  

when i say open into i mean close down on.
i don’t expect understanding, but i do hope for faith.  

when i say cathartes aura do you too hear catharsis aurora?
like the northern lights settling a peace so deep in your chest  

it’ll never unsettle. my brother tells me two weeks from now
that in our lifetime something (i can’t remember what) will occur  

so that the northern lights are seen all the way down to florida.
i can truthfully say i’m happy for nashira, but mostly i’m in awe  

that i’ll get to see it without moving. he says it’ll ruin the power grid
& i say thank god, no more internet & he says no, no water, no power,  

no heat, no cold & i say well, we’ll manage, & won’t it be worth it to see?
& he says no, the loss will be incalculable & i say well, can’t we prevent it?  

& he says yes, but money, but the people in power won’t hold power long enough
to ensure their care & i say what else is new & go back to thinking about the heavenly  

green lights entering my sight without having to move.
& anyway, haven’t we all dreamed at one point of a return to what was 

the nostalgia of never? no, what am i saying, no of course we haven’t.
only, i mistake catharsis aurora for the genus of a bird & even they are named  

for the new world, though it’s true they’re also named to pure.
when you separate into greater & lesser, the birds know nothing 

but my heart hurts all the same. when i misread horn for hope my heart soars,
& when i take holocene as holy scene, i’m not afraid to admit it’s my mind  

filling in absent blanks. the death of something so permanent
only the abomination of cloning could bring it back  

is something my mind refuses to comprehend. though i will say
i miss the thylacine something fierce, those elongated bones & heavy stripes. 

that heavy hand greed dealt. but did we not all learn our lesson with the
velociraptors in the kitchen & jeff goldblum’s bared chest?

so okay, those are two distinct lessons, but are they not held to a similar height?
maybe not. back to the pearls. when i say mother do you hear oyster, nacre, or birth?  

it doesn’t really matter, i’m only curious. when i said pearl i meant grief, remember?
extrapolate what i hear from there. the mother of my mother died before i was born 

& her mother died soon after i arrived. i don’t know what else to say.
there are pictures of arms wrapping my body but i will never remember their touch.  

the anniversary of my birth is three days from now & it’s taken twenty three years
to commit to memory my grandmother’s name. maternal, i mean.  

paternal has lasted til now & i still haven’t decided if i can see her with my own eyes.
by that i mean to say, what if she relays who i am to my father?  

by that i mean, in this case cancer is a gift that can’t be unwrapped soon enough.
by that i mean to say, i don’t have daddy issues, my father has daughter issues.  

by that i mean, i haven’t been a daughter in over a decade
but gender is a covering i can slip on & off.  

by that i mean to say, i will never be what it is i am
but i can pretend for as long as the day stays long.  

by that i mean to say a western phrase i forget the wording of.
by that i mean to say i’m still hoping  

for matching cowboy hats as a birthday gift.
by that i mean i am wondering  

how your turkey vulture is & too worried its broken leg turned into something more
to ask. by that i mean i never did get a straight answer from you on what it eats but  

i don’t know that i want to know. by that i mean when i hear
carrion, i think of miss apple two years before i was born. 

by that i mean so much of your life happened before i was even a thought
& when i say your turkey vulture i don’t mean to imply possession 

only that strange connection between two living things
that met at exactly the right time to be saved.