Amelia Martens

The End of May 2020

The magnolia blooms light

bulbs and white women

clench their jaws

and call the police

in all American cities.

We are dying

of rust; the slow

erosion, scales

form armor

that eats the interior.

Our daughter tells

a joke: What stopped

baseball season

this faulty spring?

Bats. Bats. Bats.

I am in the ceiling

again, that float-

away feeling.

He said he could

not breathe.

Light bulbs broken

off in the storm

lay like eggs

across the deep

strangled grass.

We can’t say

which part of

the arc we’re in;

no third act

begins this way.

Healthy at Home

isn’t true

for everyone

asleep in bed

after midnight.

I leave the house

and I bubble;

no masks in sight.

Naked faces broken

in this broken light.