print previewback C.L. O’DELL
Dear Animal
Dear animal, I dream I have your lack
of being able to fail. It is all too real,
the panic and no hope, the invention of love
and then breaking it because it kills me.
I am left with only moving
toward places that remain secret and loud
like a second heart on a leash
I am walking. There is
an image of an oak in my head
and me walking through it. It means flying.
A rifle goes off in the next field over
spilling sparrows into the sky like marbles.
I find grass, and it’s as if an honest man
is telling me a story. Here, snow
means two things: blood
and hunger.
Measure this brick of faith in my mouth
girdled by tongue-muscle and hum.
All of these teeth must mean something
by now. 
Dear Animal
He Thinks in Squares and Melted Grass
Heaven