X, marks for spotted owls by Kat Dixon

X, marks for spotted owls
by Kat Dixon


There are things to come back

to later, two women here, and a trick

to counting



in straight lines. Groupings of three were unintentional: we’ve been born innumerable

times in fields of clover, heads still in place. What looks accidental now takes the shape of three

unmatched socks in the lower drawers of your set-loose murder-tongue,



loose-set tongue-

murder: lists and lists of slipping into Cherokee Roses. A joint decision

to allow them to finger-walk up the walls

to allow them to sleep with all the lights on.



Two women here, but only one knows how to sew and remove stitches. Never mind my isotope. One

calls them lie patches; not lovely, no coming home means ice-cream; both keep stalks of yellow yellow

radish pink green peas. Together we have



wrung out all sad pictographs,

just the way we were taught, while we were mentioning

forever tied into a sweaty bandana. Haven’t I told you

that you remind me of a somersault?

We’ve had quite enough of your mimicry, quite enough of your laughing gas.

Author bio:

Kat Dixon gardens short-cuts in Atlanta and may be occasionally found blinking at Kat Dixon. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in blossombones, Indefinite Space, Dew on the Kudzu, Madswirl, and elsewhere.