Burn Hazel
Nettles hide in high grass
You step I run
through nettle teeth
tiny needle hairs
To sing or to cry?
Twinkle stab
the soft underside
Cartoons at 10am Feet swell
soaked in wine water
Sometimes I forget
what grade I’m in
I forget my whole life
Thud
the sun’s gold rays split tree heads
branches shake their redding leaf-hair
I want to be like the blackbird settling
errorless on the park’s power lines
through sirens’ neon thud a clean
lemon smell I mix up dusk
and dawn both so full
of birdcalls and day
digging me
a nice little
hole again
Paralysis Agitans
The body sends a text about how it is constant-
ly dying but T9 thinks otherwise. I’m trying to
teach my father how to walk again. To heel-toe
across the kitchen without tipping into rear walls
or breaking plates. We step together, distracted
signals zone his limbs. He’s alone beyond his body.
He tries to use his phone to send a message to his legs
(move) but his bones have forgotten to read.
Ari Wolff holds a BA in visual art and poetry from The New School. She lives in Brooklyn where she teaches art and preschool.