By Sarah Suhr

He rides a horse // by the fire station
______in Falls City // to slip his resume
into the soft hand // of a secretary—this happens
______before he says, // You carry yourself
in an idyllically classy way // I’d be proud
______ to have you // on my arm. _____ I only think
of alliteration: // of belt buckle—
______the one he wears // while singing karaoke.

                                                               I take my fishing pole to Beaver Lake
                                                               after work and a blackbird squawks
                                                               a breathless death song at the roadside.
                                                               She has no friends circling the bruised
                                                               sky, so I sit in the gravel beside her, wait
                                                               for night to bleed in between the stars.

On Hinge, a man miles // of mountains away
______sends me a message: // I’ve been staring at your
clavicle for hours. // And I consider all the bones
______of women beneath // the earth’s surface—
how this man’s bootsoles // must sound against rocks.

                                                               I enter the chicken coop with a baseball bat
                                                               and basket as my mother has coached.
                                                               The bat I one-handedly swing at
                                                               a buckish cock kicking up chicken shit
                                                               and feathers. I don’t intend to hit him—
                                                               just snatch the eggs and run, but I see
                                                               the scrawny hen he plucks to patches,
                                                               and I wonder about the sunglasses
                                                               my mother wears indoors.

My ex says, I do // more than most men,
______or here’s a pillow // perfect for suffocation—take it,
put it on your face. // My grandfather pours the concrete
______foundation of his house, // my stepdad rebuilds
cars and cooks dinner, // my uncle drives his kids
______to school after working the night // shift. What’s
more than most men? // What’s more than most women?

                                                               The goose’s head is still on the chopping
                                                               block. Her headless body runs around
                                                               the yard—blood coming from her neck
                                                               like a slow sprinkler head. She rushes into
                                                               the Bermuda grass at my ankles. My ankles
                                                               itch—and, for not crying, I am tough.

Another Hinge connection. // This time by phone—
______You’d look great on my // motorcycle, he says.
I’m also smart, I say. // Yeah? Well, you’d still
______look great on my motorcycle. // This feels
like the definition of female // or cartwheel or dog chasing tail.

                                                               In the potboil is a cow’s slick tongue—
                                                               rigid and rolling in its fatty dross,
                                                               each impurity clumped together
                                                               like an inkblot or divination. O Oracle!
                                                               O Ladle! Speak to me of the sour
                                                               stink in this house. Help me remember
                                                               the soft ears of a calf.

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Sarah Suhr is a Seattle-based poet and the author of the chapbook Lies I Tell Myself (dancing girl press & studio, 2018). Her work has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes, and she has been featured in Poets & Writers Magazine and on NPR. Her poems have appeared in The Normal School, American Literary Review, Entropy magazine, and Maudlin House. She is an editorial assistant of Poetry Northwest magazine.

Originally appeared in NOR 29.