Kathleen Hellen

(as if that could contain her). Not a toy, Okaasan said. Kiyohime: who thrilled in my imagination when she danced—six hats cascading from her hand transforming from silk and gold brocade to scales that snaked around flirtations when I pillowed dragon’s fire when I painted face in oyster shell becoming ghastly when monked by stupid

no milkstork at the bombed-out shrine in Hamamatsu no wholesomeness three sizes bigger, fatter my mother said that people brewed the tender leaves that steeped in fragrant matcha, mastered yeast from rice the poets tended no kine that cattled cud—no farmers choking on the gases who were these half-calf kids who schooled me in belonging?

One-by-one the trees undress in carcasses
of seed, scatter in cascade, in flimsy under-orange,
a negligee of red. The colors lost, caught with vine between
the tines of rile and wind. What dread in bleeding?