The men in this world are all tantrum, all
umbrage, low sulk and smolder, all rage out.
They cut you down
to light your limbs. They do not ask.
They do not ask.
So I marry the ash who never hurt anyone. I learn
to speak stillness and bark.
The men walk my swept dirt and whistle,
leaf-light lively on their saw blades, wanting
to widow me. Do they widow me? Wifeless,
I am always already widowed.
So I marry the ash tree who never hurt anyone.
I flex fixed and spit seeds.
Now, I bed sunlight. Throat water. Do I come
alive?
I am always already alive.
Caylin Capra-Thomas's second chapbook, Inside My Electric City, is available from YesYes books. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Vermont Studio Center and the Studios of Key West, and her poems have appeared in journals including New England Review, Crazyhorse, Colorado Review, Copper Nickel, 32 Poems, and elsewhere. She lives in Idyllwild, California, where she is poet-in-residence at Idyllwild Arts Academy.